Blown Away

by L. J. Vickery

  “And damned attractive. Why would…” Marduk shook his head, but when Enlil started to explain, the thunder god held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want any details.” Marduk would get the story eventually. The goddesses tended to confide all sorts of things to each other, and if Candy became a goddess… Well, needless to say, Tess loved regaling her husband with small tidbits.

  Enlil turned his hand up appealingly. “So you can see now why I need the collar. I have to make things as easy as possible on Candy. She has to be able to order the bull to stay out of sex to, uh, accommodate me.” A blush worked up his neck.

  Marduk didn’t even attempt to tease. “No problem, Enlil. Upon Sham’s word, I already retrieved it from its hiding place in the basement and moved it to a more convenient spot in my safe. Let’s go get it.”

  Enlil blew out a relieved breath. His plan could be put into action.

  ****

  Far across the country, on the West Coast, Candy entered her mom’s house. She took in a deep, appreciative breath. Jovana was putting the finishing touches on the Christmas Eve meal. As per their family tradition, a pot of menudo had been cooking on the stove since morning. The smell of tripe and onions in their heady bath of spices filled the entire house.

  Homemade corn tortillas would remain warm in the oven, while Jovana added hominy to the soup. It was a ritual that had never varied in all of Candy’s years.

  “Mi preciosa,” Jovana called. “I’m in the kitchen.”

  “And where else would you be, Mama?” Candy quickly entered the warm room and dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “That smells wonderful.” She snuck over to the pot and lifted the cover. “Oh, menudo,” she exclaimed, feigning surprise. “I haven’t had this since last Christmas.” She wondered if she could make it without the tripe in order for Enlil to enjoy it.

  But why did her mind flit to Enlil? Tonight was for her and her mother. As far back as Candy could remember, it was just the two of them. No need for images of the big windy boy to get in the way.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Candy asked, but she already knew the answer. Her mother refused to have anyone else at her stove.

  “I’ve got this,” she affirmed.

  Jovana brought the already chopped onions and cilantro to the table. Candy tried to keep herself from drooling as her mother spooned the menudo into two bowls and topped each with the mixture, along with a few fresh tomatoes and a good size lime wedge.

  As soon as they were complete, Jovana went to the oven, took out the warm tortillas, and added them to the feast.

  Mismatched spoons and napkins followed, and quickly, before her mother finished, Candy ran to the living room and placed one of her old Mormon Tabernacle Choir records on the turntable in the ancient cabinet stereo. She set the needle to Hallelujah Chorus, her all-time favorite. The exultant voices filled the room.

  “Now we can eat,” Candy said, dancing back to the table to sit down opposite her mother. They joined hands and bowed heads. “…and he shall reign, forever and ever.”

  The music was prayer in itself. Candy and her mother had no need to add their own words, and as the chorus ended, they dug into their Christmas Eve repast.

  Several hours later, after full bellies led to Christmas music that ran the gamut from Ry Cooder and Tito Puente to Gloria Estefan and Eliades Ochoa, Candy picked up the small pile of gifts her mother had given her, and made her way to the door. It had been such a lovely night.

  She’d figured that sometime during the quiet evening, she’d broach the subject of Enlil, and have a chance to feel her mother out―slowly―on Enlil’s immortal status. But the time had never seemed right, and Candy stepped out onto the porch with her heart a little heavy.

  Eventually Jovana would have to know, especially if Candy ended up activating Enlil’s mate-detector. But for now, perhaps it remained best the subject hadn’t come up. What if Candy found out she wasn’t the one? That outcome could happen, and the possibility depressed her. She’d gotten used to the big arrogant god, and if she wanted to be honest, she missed him. The idea of going back to her solitary apartment, to her own empty bed, held little appeal.

  Candy pasted a smile on her face and turned to kiss her mother, who had followed her, on the cheek. “Thanks for the great meal, Mama. I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days.” Jovana always spent Christmas Day serving food on the South Side, which was the reason the two always did their celebrating on Christmas Eve. Jovana grabbed Candy’s free hand.

  “Maybe he’ll come back sooner than expected, mi querida angel,” her mother said knowingly. “He probably misses you. You miss him.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Candy wondered at herself. Not since Thug had she experienced such a connection to another human being. Hah. There lay the rub, though, now didn’t it. Enlil? Not human. And if she turned out to be his Chosen, then Candy wouldn’t be human anymore either. Could she take that step?

  “He’s special, mija. I can tell.” Her mother’s words soothed. “You need to let this one into your heart.”

  Candy sighed and hugged her mother close and breathed in her comforting scent. “Oh, Mama. I’m completely screwed. I think I already have.”

  “Language, daughter,” Jovana lightly chastised.

  “Yes, Mama.” Candy gave a gentle smile. “I love you, you know.”

  “I know, mi hija dulce. I love you too.” Her mother turned with one last brush of her hand over Candy’s spiky locks and walked inside.

  Candy closed the door silently behind her and made her way to the car. She stowed the few presents in the back seat, and tuned the radio to more Christmas music for the ride home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “It should be okay,” Charlie assured Ishkur for what had to be the tenth time. It wasn’t for his benefit. Ishkur understood she tried to keep herself calm.

  They drove the short distance to her ex-husband’s house with Maitlynn strapped into her car seat in the back, and it hadn’t taken two minutes for the little cherub to fall sound asleep. “I told Hal that Maity wouldn’t be awake to see him. I don’t know why he insisted on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.”

  “But that’s our luck, isn’t it?” Ishkur reminded her, urging her to look on the bright side. “Now the three of us will be on the red-eye tomorrow morning headed for Boston.”

  As planned, mention of their impending trip took the worry off Charlie’s face.

  “And remember, I’ll be right out here waiting in the car if you need me. Yell or throw a piece of furniture out a window if you need to get my attention. I’ll be inside before you can blink.”

  Ishkur didn’t like the idea of Charlie and Maity going into the house without him, but he could tell Charlie felt embarrassed by her ex, who she said would probably be drunk, and the god didn’t want her to be any more uncomfortable.

  “Thanks, Ishkur.” Charlie leaned over and put a quick kiss on his cheek. Ishkur positively beamed with pleasure. He remembered this feeling of family. It resurrected good memories and protective instincts. And what he wouldn’t do―already―to keep this one happy and safe.

  Ishkur got a good long look at Hal when he answered the door. Medium height and dark in coloring, the guy had probably been fairly good-looking before alcohol took over to give him a pot belly and a doughy face. Ishkur slunk down in his seat, not to be spotted.

  Hal barely glanced at the sleeping toddler, instead taking Charlie by the elbow and leading her inside. That seemed weird. Ishkur’s gut clenched as he sat up a little straighter. The lights came on in the living room and he could see inside just enough to watch two heads settle several feet apart on a couch. Okay. So far, everything looked normal.

  Ishkur glanced around at the outside of the property. The place unnerved him, and he’d seen a lot of sketchy stuff in his long life.

  From what he could see in the dark, the lawn wasn’t mowed, and the house paint peeled in long, ugly strips. Several dark piles of trash, or perhaps
car parts, dotted the yard. And the picket fence in the back leaned precariously. All in all, a look of complete neglect. The asshole hadn’t even made any pretense of hanging Christmas lights to delight his little daughter.

  A tense half hour passed, and Ishkur finally noticed one head move from the couch. Instantly, he snapped to alert. The porch door opened and Charlie’s ex emerged to light up a cigarette. Ishkur snorted. At least the asshole had the decency not to smoke inside where Maitlynn still likely slept.

  The jerk glanced at his watch then turned his attention down the street. Hal took another couple of drags, then hung the butt between his lips and pulled a phone from his pocket. He tapped it a few times, then barked a terse word or two into the device that Ishkur couldn’t make out.

  He nodded his head, punched a button, and pocketed the phone before taking a long drag, then flicked the still lit cigarette into the bushes off to the side of the house. Fucking asshole, Ishkur growled. Could he burn the place down another time, when it wasn’t full of Ishkur’s precious family? The god waited until Charlie’s ex got back into the house, before easing quietly out of the car. He’d find the damn cigarette and make sure it was extinguished.

  After this was over, Ishkur determined, slinking across the front yard, he’d have a long talk with Charlie. No way did he want her or the baby to be at the beck and call of such a total prick.

  A smile brushed his lips. It occurred to him that the need for that conversation would be moot. As soon as he established whose Chosen Charlie was, she and Maity would no longer be near dear old Hal. They’d be living at the compound on the opposite coast, and Charlie would be a goddess; more than able to take care of herself around this asshole. A heartening outcome.

  Ishkur knelt in the bushes to find the butt. His fingers wrapped around it, still smoldering, and he smudged it out in the dirt, but damn. A sound? A car door?

  Tucking himself farther out of sight, the god turned slowly and quietly to see a pair of men emerge from a vehicle. They came up the front walkway. Company? Christmas Eve was not a normal time for guests to arrive unexpectedly, and Charlie hadn’t said anything about extras. He waited in the bushes while the two rang the bell.

  Hal opened the door quickly, as if he had been expecting the newcomers, and let them inside without a word. What the hell? Ishkur didn’t feel easy having his girls in the house with three men, especially knowing the kind of things Hal espoused―gambling and drinking. He’d give the lot of them ten minutes.

  It took all his fortitude to remain quiet. He listened carefully for any sound of distress from within, but heard nothing. Five minutes passed without incident, then ten. Ishkur raised up out of the shrubs and crept around to the window he’d glimpsed from the car. He stood just tall enough to see over the sill.

  The television was on, and baby Maitlynn lay sound asleep on the floor of a playpen. She looked angelic with her little face scrunched up into the blankets and her thumb plunged deeply into her mouth. They would have to do something about that. Ishkur remembered reading that thumb sucking was bad for developing teeth.

  He looked around the room and observed no adults. Odd. The house didn’t look very big. Perhaps they were in the kitchen getting food. Ishkur strode quickly past the front door and around to the back. He found a rickety looking deck with sliders that led into the kitchen. The space was poorly lit. And empty. Now Ishkur worried. He kept circling to his right and stood on tiptoes at the next window. A bathroom, and it too stood empty.

  The next two windows on the far end of the house were impossible to see into. The glass was covered on the inside with what looked to be blackout shades. No matter where Ishkur looked, he found no cracks in the blinds. He crouched to move back around front and knock at the door, when a small sound of distress hit him. His ears perked up and his skin turned cold.

  Calling on his enhanced powers of hearing, he paused and caught the sound again. He didn’t imagine it. A small “No, please,” had come from inside the blacked-out room. From Charlie.

  Ishkur didn’t hesitate. Grasping the ledge of the window from the outside, he heaved himself up and over, smashing the glass into thousands of shards with his head as it ruptured inward. With god-like grace, he hit the floor, rolling in a fluid somersault into the room. He gained his feet and looked up. The tableau that hit his eyes stunned him in place. The four inhabitants also froze, shocked into stillness.

  Charlie kneeled on the floor, completely nude and bound, with her hands behind her back. The rope went from her wrists to her ankles. A blindfold had been placed over her eyes, and her face looked ravaged with tears from what little Ishkur could see.

  The two strangers postured in front of Charlie, with her ex-husband standing behind holding Charlie tightly by the hair. One of the men had his pants down and his dick out, mere inches from Charlie’s mouth. What the fuck? The noises he’d heard were Charlie’s cries, begging the scumbags to let her go.

  Ishkur’s chest struggled to release a roar, but cognizant of the innocently sleeping Maity down the hall, he allowed only an irate hiss to radiate outward. His ire grew proportionately. He was the god of spring rain, but his symbol and true power was ball lightning. Fire.

  Flames spontaneously erupted from Ishkur’s hands. The room immediately crackled with ozone. He couldn’t hold any of it back, but dammit, he didn’t want to. It had been thousands of years since he’d been angry enough to release a conflagration, but these assholes were about to witness all his fury.

  “Stop.” His voice snapped through the room like electricity, low and dangerous.

  The coward of an ex-husband, forgetting he had Charlie bound hand to foot, tried to drag her up by her hair as a shield, but she had no support and toppled over. He let her go to hit the ground and backed himself up to a wall.

  “Who the hell are you?” The man whose dick was not in his hand had the presence of mind to stand back and bring out a gun, which he aimed shakily at Ishkur. “This ain’t none of your business, man.” His gun waved all over the place. “You want the bitch?” He pointed the piece at Charlie, and Ishkur experienced an instant swell of panic. “You can have her. But get the fuck out or I’ll shoot. I swear to God I will.”

  Ishkur, incensed and nearly out of his mind, blazed to life. His splayed fingers sent a small ball of fire toward the man. It connected with the gun, and heating quickly and intensely, the metal seared into his flesh. He let out a terrible scream.

  The probability of Maity sleeping through the noise became moot. He needed to take care of this quickly.

  Ishkur leaped forward and leveled the zipper-down guy with one punch to the jaw. He picked the other sniveling fool off the bed―he’d sunk to the mattress clutching at his burned hand―and threw him violently into the wall where he immediately lost consciousness. Ishkur then turned burning eyes to Hal.

  “No please. Don’t hurt me,” the prick begged. “It’s just something we do,” he babbled. “It would have been okay. Ask her,” he cried hysterically. “Ask her.”

  Charlie stirred on the floor, the broken glass from the window a sparkling field around her naked body.

  “Don’t move, Charlie,” Ishkur ordered. “You’ll cut yourself.”

  Anxious to finish the ex-husband off, he watched her struggle to speak and her hesitation stopped him. “What is it, Charlie? Tell me.”

  The cries of the one-year old in the next room told him Maity stirred.

  “Don’t hurt him, Ishkur,” Charlie whispered. “Don’t.” She swallowed hard. “I’ll tell you everything later, but don’t hurt him. He’s just a very weak man…not worth you going to jail over.”

  Ishkur eyeballed the sniveling coward. He wanted to burn the son-of-a-bitch to a crisp and listen to him howl. But Charlie spoke the truth. Someone would pay if the asshole died, and once Ishkur became invisible, it would probably be Charlie. He took a deep breath and the fire disappeared from his hands.

  He strode forward and rolled asshole number one off the bed and to the floo
r, yanking the spread from the mattress to throw it over Charlie. He used it to scoop her into his arms, lifting straight up to avoid dragging her through the glass. He carried her still bound body to the door, and with controlled precision, sent a quick ball of fire into the far corner of the bedroom. He glared one last time at Hal.

  “You’d better drag your friends out before they burn,” he delivered in a flat, emotionless voice. “And if you ever come near Charlie or Maitlynn again, I swear I will kill you, no matter what Charlie says.”

  Hal didn’t look like he doubted for a minute that Ishkur would do it. And why should he? Ishkur had burst through a window and shot fire from his hands. As far as Hal knew, Ishkur was a psycho mutant.

  “Better hurry.”

  The fire took hold. Ishkur turned with Charlie in his arms and strode out toward the living room. He tore the blindfold from Charlie’s eyes, and keeping her aloft with one arm, stretched down with the other to pick up the baby. He perched a crying Maity on top of the blanketed pile of female, and Charlie immediately buried her face in her daughter’s hair, crooning long, shuddering nonsense to calm her while Ishkur carried them from the house.

  By the time he secured Charlie in the front of the car, and a now sniffling Maity in her toddler seat, Ishkur shook from head to toe. Something he could never remember happening. He fumbled with the keys, started the vehicle, and drove several blocks away from the house, which would soon be engulfed in flames. He eased over and put the vehicle in park. With unsure hands, he shuffled the blankets from Charlie in the semi-dark and ripped the ropes that bound her into pieces.

  Once free, he rewrapped her in the blanket, covering her nakedness, and looked back to Maity, who again reclined, sound asleep in her baby seat. If only life could be that easy for everyone Ishkur sighed. Charlie hunkered into the blanket, but didn’t speak. Ishkur started the car up again.

  It took what seemed to be an interminable amount of time to get back to Dunsky’s house, and ten additional minutes for Charlie to get her daughter securely in bed for the night.