“You read my mind,” August said. He put her down. “First, let’s clean up.”
August cleaned up all the beer bottles and empty junk food bags from the coffee table. Sara dusted off the dining room table. They hadn’t eaten at the dining room table in months. Sara coughed as the dust was whipped into the air.
She went through a few boxes next to the table and found some plates and wine glasses and placed two of each on the table.
They hadn’t had a romantic night since they left Sotira. August’s laziness brought down his sex drive and Sara wasn’t up for much, either.
August hoped he could perform after so long.
He finished cleaning the living room and Sara started to cook. He wandered into the kitchen and saw Sara turn on the gas stove. Sara saw him, “Shoo!”
“But I want to see what you’re cooking.”
“It’s a surprise, okay.”
August sat back on the couch, waiting.
Sara yelled from the kitchen, “Go get the wine!”
August almost forgot. He stood up and grabbed his keys. While he was leaving, Sara started lighting candles while the food was cooking in the kitchen.
He stared at her beautiful face. With her, anything was possible. Even killing a god.
August held a bottle of wine in his hand. The name of it was in some language that he didn’t understand. But he got it because he remembered Sara saying she liked it.
He stood in the convenience store aisle staring at sex enhancement pills. “Pleasure her all night long,” August muttered under his breath. There were so many pills, all claiming to do the same thing. He didn’t know which one to choose.
He looked around. The cashier was reading a newspaper. There was no one else in the store. Wine and some pills, that’s not suspicious at all.
He grabbed the most expensive one and walked up to the cashier. He placed the wine and pills on the counter. “Expecting a fun night?” the man said.
“Sure.” August gave him his card and looked around; the place was still empty. The feeling he usually got when something was wrong was nagging at him in the back of his head. He glanced out of the store window. His car was sitting alone in the parking lot.
The cashier bagged his things and handed them to him. “Have a great night,” the man said with a wink.
August grabbed the bag and walked out. He glanced around as he walked to his car. There was a hooded man walking toward him from the street. August’s heart skipped a beat.
Shit.
August put his free hand into his pocket. Crap. He had nothing to defend himself with. The man didn’t look at him as he approached.
August grabbed his keys and put the individual keys between his fingers. Better than nothing.
August’s heart pounded in his chest as he closed in on the man. August kept his eyes forward. He couldn’t make himself look nervous.
In a few more steps, the man passed him. Not muttering a single word or stepping a single foot out of line. August glanced back at him. He let out a belated breath.
His nerves were getting the better of him. He got into his car and stared at the man walking into the convenience store. He was just a drunk.
August sighed and started his car.
August parked outside of his apartment complex. The ride was uneventful. Nothing was unusual about the traffic or his drive back. It didn’t look like he was being followed. Maybe it was nothing, after all.
August stepped out of his car and walked toward his apartment. His parking spot was all the way on the other side of the complex from his place. He hated that.
He could imagine the night that he and Sara were going to have together. He hoped the pills would work. Truly, he hoped he wouldn’t need to use them and that he’d be able to get by on her scent alone.
An explosion shattered the silence and rocked the air. August fell back. A plume of orange and black rose into the air. Pellets of dirt and glass rained from the sky. August shielded his face.
What the hell was that?
Once the smoke settled, August saw where it came from. In the distance, there was a smoldering hole in the middle of the complex, multiple apartments laid in waste. In the middle of it all was his place.
“Sara!”
August ran toward his apartment. He heard sirens as he ran. People started to leave their apartments to see what the commotion was. As he got closer, he stopped. There was a massive hole where his place used to be. Nothing could’ve survived that.
August fell on his knees. The wine bottle shattered on the ground.
“No,” he muttered.
“Noooo!” he screamed.
Wine pooled around his knees as he started to cry.
Kevan sat in a chair in a hospital room, his mother lying asleep in front of him. The doctor was checking her vitals.
He made it in time. He didn’t have to lose someone else again so soon.
The doctor turned to him, “She was lucky you found her so fast.”
Kevan nodded.
“We were able to save her, but her insurance didn’t go through.”
Kevan sighed.
The doctor continued, “We have payment plans we can set up for you if you need help paying.”
“What? Doesn’t the front desk usually give that spiel? Why is my mother’s doctor talking about money when he just saved her life?”
“Sorry. But Ifor changed the way our medical system works. If your mother doesn’t pay her bill then I don’t get paid myself.”
“Fucking Ifor.”
“To help in the future and to reduce your mother’s future expenses, I suggest putting her up in a rehab center.”
“Oh, I haven’t thought about that one before. But wait. If I do that, then you won’t get paid. Maybe you shouldn’t try to help in the future, Doc, if you want to have a financially stable career,” Kevan sarcastically said.
The doctor looked at him and shook his head and left. Luna walked in after he left.
“Is she okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kevan said.
Luna hugged him. It seemed like her belly had gotten a lot bigger in the previous two days.
“What are you going to do?”
“I … I don’t know.” Kevan looked at his mother as she slept. Her body was so fragile, but that was his mother. He didn’t want to lose her.
Kevan’s phone rang. It was a number he didn’t recognize. Usually he would’ve just ignored it, but—
“Hello,” Kevan said.
“Hello, Kevan, this is Svante.”
Svante? Why in the hell was a god calling him?
“Hello, Svante.”
“I heard about your mother.”
There was a pause. Kevan didn’t answer him.
“About how she was in the hospital.”
“I’m … I’m sorry I stormed out. This wasn’t your fault, this happened during our meeting.” Why was he apologizing to him?
“That’s the thing, it’s not my fault that she OD’d, but it will be if I allowed it to happen again.”
Kevan stared at his phone. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve moved some funds around. I will help you with your mother. I’ve already sent the payment to Heaven’s Heights.”
Kevan nearly dropped his phone. “I…I…I don’t—”
“Don’t say anything. Not all the gods are bad guys, Kevan. He is the only all-seeing one. We others have a harder time seeing things in others. I hope you have a fine night.”
Svante hung up.
“Kevan, who was that?”
Kevan turned to Luna. His mother was going to be helped. After a year of shit, his life was finally starting to look up.
Kevan walked to Luna and hugged her. She looked at him, confused. He was crying in her arms.
Svante hung up the phone in his office. He wondered how Queen would react to what he’d just done. Screw her. This was his place to rule over.
Brookes walked through his door without knocki
ng. Svante got to his feet.
“You wanted to see me?” Brookes said.
“Yes, I wanted to see Queen’s fuck buddy.”
“Is that all?”
“I want you to leave Sotira.”
“I cannot do that, Svante.”
“Are you disobeying my order, the order of a god?” Svante's tone rose.
Brookes stepped back, noticing the change in his voice.
“I only answer to Queen, Svante.”
“Don’t use my name. Call me either Sir or… actually, just Sir.”
“Sir.… I was ordered to do business here by Queen.”
“I don’t like it when other gods interfere in my domain. Especially when they’re killing people for unexplainable reasons.”
“I’m overseeing some people for Queen. When my business is done, I will leave and never come back to this shithole. If you have a problem with that, speak to Queen.”
“Rats like you should be killed. I could make you disappear, in the flash of a second.”
Brookes stepped toward him.
“Rats like me make the world go round. Queen took a liking to me, so she wouldn’t like it if I were to go missing.”
“Leave my office.”
Brookes smiled and turned to leave.
“If you weren’t Queen’s lust toy then I would kill you with my bare hands. Once that lust leaves Queen… and oh, yes, her lust for you will leave her, it always does for people like you… she’ll discard you like the others. And then I will find you and I will kill you myself.”
Brookes hesitated and looked at Svante. He was serious.
“I’d probably be doing you a favor as I don’t see how people like you can live with yourself.”
“It’s easier than you think,” Brookes said as he left. The door slammed behind him.
Svante pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
Brookes was a human snitch. Working with Queen to strategically subjugate the human race. He would have never allowed this.
But now He didn’t speak to anyone anymore. Svante sat in his seat and smoked his cigarette. He needed to figure out a way to stop Queen from her reign. But to have a war of the gods again? He couldn’t let that happen. What could he do?
As he sat and smoked the night away, he wished that He would speak to him again. To give guidance to the world.
To help save them from themselves.
4
Touched
Barbara sat next to Kevan in his truck as he drove home. She was looking better, her skin full of color, the bags under her eyes lessening.
Whatever the doctor gave her really helped. Kevan wondered if Svante could possibly help with the medical bills as well. But he wasn’t going to push it.
The drive home was quiet and uneventful. His mother didn’t speak to him as she stared out of the window the whole way. Kevan didn’t say anything to her. He wanted to tell her he was glad that she was alive. That he was glad that he had found her before it was too late. But…
Kevan glanced at his mother, she looked deep in thought. The silence wasn’t awkward. It was perfect. So he didn’t say a word.
When they arrived at her home, Kevan sat on the couch, letting out a long sigh. When was the last time he slept? He needed to get some sleep.
But first maybe a drink. Kevan laughed. Maybe he really was an alcoholic.
His mother stood in front him, staring at him. Not saying a word.
“What is it?” Kevan asked.
“I’ll … I’ll go. To rehab.”
Kevan smiled.
The night was still smoky, the ash filling August’s nose as he sat on the curb. In front of him, firefighters searched his apartment’s remains. Red and blue lights filled his vision.
It was over. A gas leak, they said, started it all.
August cried into his hands.
The fight he had was gone. Sara was the anchor that kept him afloat. Now, he had nothing to stop him from being consumed by the deep abyss.
“Found something!” a firefighter yelled.
August perked up.
The firefighter lifted a wall off of someone. A woman.
“She’s still alive,” the firefighter said.
Sara.
August got up and ran to her but was stopped by the police. “Sir, you cannot cross over, this is a police investigation.”
“Investigation? That’s my girlfriend!” August yelled. He tried to get past the cop again, but the cop forced him back.
August had to watch as they dug her out and put her on the stretcher. August yelled and yelled as they put her into an ambulance and drove off. August tried with all his might but the police never budged.
August’s tires squealed to a stop outside of the hospital. He had a hard time keeping up with the ambulance since it could run lights, but he saw it turn into this hospital.
The paramedics were unloading Sara as he pulled in. He ran to them as they carried her to the door.
“Wait!” he yelled.
He ran into the hospital and followed Sara’s stretcher. Doctors started to work on her as he ran up to them.
A nurse stopped him, “Sir, we have to operate. Are you her husband? We have a place you can wait.”
“No, I’m her boyfriend.”
“Sorry, sir, the ER waiting room is for family only. You will need to wait in the lobby.”
“Fuck!” August screamed. The nurse jumped. He wanted to punch something, hit anything. He looked at the nurse, she motioned toward the lobby.
He couldn’t do anything to her, she was just doing her job. August breathed in deeply and made his way to the lobby and sat down.
He didn’t get a good look at Sara, at how bad her injuries were. He needed them to save her, they had to.
It was a few hours later. Sara lay on a hospital bed, asleep under medication. The machine next to her beeped slowly as her heart was beating steadily. A woman stood next to her, covered in pure white robes. Her face was blurry and unclear. But past the blur and the lack of clarity was the shape of a beauty.
She touched Sara’s face and caressed it.
Sara opened her eyes. She stood naked in the purest white. Clouds surrounded her, raging against each other, yet not making a single sound. Not a breeze to make her bare skin uncomfortable. Sara didn’t notice her bareness, for the entity in front of her was all she could focus on.
In front of her stood the woman, her face a blur, no matter how hard Sara’s eyes tried to focus. Behind the woman was a break in the white; past the break was an infinity of colors. A voice spoke in Sara’s head, the woman’s voice. Sara didn’t understand how she knew it was her, but she understood what she had to do. To save August and to save the world.
Luna stood over an unbuilt crib in her apartment. “This is impossible.”
She’d been trying to build the crib all day.
Something wet hit her feet. She looked down.
“Oh god.”
Her water had just broken.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god!”
She ran to her phone and called Kevan. But it went straight to voicemail.
“Shit!”
Kevan sat at the bar in the Skullet. He’d been nursing his whiskey all night. The glass was still half-full. He’s not in the mood to drink. He thought he would be, after a day like that.
Brookes walked in and sat next to him.
Of course he was here. Kevan said, “Are you following me?”
“Why would I follow you?”
“You seem to be here every time I’m here. My family is kind of notorious, apparently.”
Brookes laughed.
“The whole world isn’t about you and your problems,” Brookes said with some rancor.
Kevan didn’t reply to him. He knew when someone didn’t want to be talked to. But he should at the very least thank him for his suggestion.
“I didn’t mean it that way… Thanks for the help with my mother.”
Brookes shrugged.
; “We all have to do what we have to, to survive,” he said.
“You keep saying that. But I don’t even know your story.”
Brookes looked at him. Kevan got his attention. Kevan noticed that Brookes spent hundreds each night. Seemingly drinking so much without getting at least a little bit tipsy.
His clothes looked dirty but his face wasn’t, his skin was taut and firm and despite the scruffy look of his beard, it was somewhat well-maintained. And now that Kevan got a closer look, Brookes seemed like someone who was hiding in plain sight.
“How about you screw off?” Brookes said.
“Sorry but you introduced yourself to me. I’m not the one who started off this relationship we have. I kind of want to know why you’ve been so helpful. And then a second later decide not to be?”
Brookes stared into his drink. “I’m part of a wet team.”
“A wet team?”
“A soldier for the gods. I kill people so the world keeps running.”
Kevan stared at him. The bartender brought Brookes another drink and he downed it. “I’ve killed entire towns of people like you. I sabotage those pitiful elections that you humans have.”
Humans. He spoke like he wasn’t one.
“I’ve shot fathers, mothers, and children in the face while they pleaded for salvation. When the only reason they had to be ended was because of the posturing of some god.”
“Why... why are you telling me this?”
Brookes laughed.
“I didn’t think it would work. I was the one giving your mother her fix anyways.”
“What?” Kevan’s back stiffened.
“What? You didn’t hear me? How do you think these kind of drugs get to you humans? By men like me. We get incentives from certain gods for every person we get hooked.”
Kevan’s whiskey glass smashed into Brookes’ face and Brookes toppled to the floor.
“You fucking started this!” Kevan yelled.
Brookes bled from a gash near his eye. Kevan stood over him.
Brookes just laughed. The bartender raised a gun to Kevan. “Not in my bar.”
Kevan stared at Brookes, who kept laughing. Kevan wanted to rip his tongue out. Kevan threw a few dollars on the bar “for the glass” and left.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 205