by Tim Marquitz
The aliens snapped out of their fugue and started forward while my mystical fingers punched holes in the ceiling and clasped desperately at the wood as though they were honking boobs. I yanked my arms back and the roof tore loose with a roaring shriek. Daylight spilled into the building, a whitewash of brilliance flooding in. A quick twist of my extendo-arms sent the pieces of wood and roofing smashing into the wall at my back. While the doors might have been reinforced, it was obvious the rest of the place hadn’t been. The wreckage crashed into the doors and sent them toppling over, the frame and wall around them shattering as they were swept away, a million toothpicks exploding to spear the yard outside. I was through the hole and gone before any the aliens had stopped gawking.
Well…almost.
A shape leapt from the back of the group, resolving as it hurtled toward me. It was clearly no alien; it was an angel.
He came at me, teeth bared as he snarled, and took a swing at me the moment he hit the ground. I recognized him instantly: Iriaal, the guy I’d shot back at the church.
His hair whipped in the wind, and I could pick out the singed scent of his rage. A golden blade cleaved the air just inches from where my neck had been a heartbeat before, but I held back on the applause as the wash of magical energy rippled past. While the aliens could drag me down and overpower me, this guy could straight up kill me.
My magical hands still shimmering, I grabbed his weapon arm with one and reared back with the other. His eyes went wide, and then narrowed, all right before I smashed the fist into his face. He grunted at the impact and went flying back into the darkness of the building, taking out a handful of his henchmen along the way. The rest kept coming.
I sunk my mystical fingers into the ground in front of them and ripped it up as though it were a carpet. A quick shake sent the aliens tumbling into each other, a Benny Hill skit at its finest, minus the scantily clad British chicks. That would have definitely made it better. So would have a little more endurance.
My magic fluttered. While I hadn’t taken anywhere near the beating Longinus had on our way here, it must have been enough to weaken my battery. I was suddenly very tired. As much as I wanted to take a nap, there wasn’t much hope these guys would take a time out seriously. But that was cool. I had an alternative, so I let the magic slip away with a sigh.
Guns back in my hands, I ejected the mags and slammed new ones home while the aliens scrambled to get to their feet. I didn’t let them. More discriminately than I had before, I fired into their clustered mass. Bodies danced and grooved beneath the hail of lead, their screams ringing against out against the translator that turned them coherent.
“Retreat!”
I looked up to see Iriaal screaming at the aliens from the wreckage of the building he’d crashed into. The golden dagger he’d come at me with had been slid into a sheath at his thigh. My eyes were drawn to the pommel. It looked just like the piece I’d found at the Eidolon site. The angel turned and the weapon dropped out of my line of sight. He didn’t look too hurt, but I could barely feel the vague tinge of his magic. It was as if he was holding back. His eyes were slits in his handsome face, mouth curved into a frown. And while I hadn’t hit him that hard, he looked like a whipped dog, his tail tucked between his legs.
The aliens scrambled to follow his order, but I unloaded into their backs until my pistols ran dry. Angel boy didn’t even bother to wait for them to get clear. Glimmering wings erupted from his back and he was airborne before the first of his subordinates fell. I reloaded and shot a few more as they fled, slipping into the tall grasses on the other side of the building they’d ambushed me in. I could hear their huffed breaths in the air and see the sway of the weeds, firing a few last shots to keep them on their toes. After a few minutes, silence settled over the farm. I was alone.
Which made no sense.
They’d lured me all the way out here just to run? I grunted, tired of the why that kept popping into my head. The angel had the means to kill me, the dagger definitely empowered, and plenty of cannon fodder to keep me busy while he stabbed me, then why did he stop? Having taken a shot at him once already, I would have thought he’d be dying to get me back.
I waited a few moments, making sure the goon squad wasn’t coming back, and then unleashed my senses. They squirmed out, tendrils creeping into every nook and cranny of the nearby area, but there was nothing there. Only the cylinders of energy stood out against in the barren backdrop of Feluris’ essence. Karra wasn’t there.
My heart thumped hollow, and I swallowed hard against the emotion welling volcanic in my throat. This had been nothing but a trap; poorly executed, but a trap nevertheless. There was no trace of Karra having ever been there, no hint of her essence or even the soft scent of her perfume. Tears moistened my eyes and cast bright halos about the edges of my vision. Every moment I wasted running across Feluris took her further and further away from me. And as much as I tried to deny the feeling, the slow creep of cold certainty, I couldn’t help but think I had lost her once more. Only this time, there’d be no happy ending to the fairy tale, no surprise return from out of the blue. With all the energy Gorath was stockpiling, it wouldn’t be long until he took his shot at Lucifer and realized the old boy was long gone from his reach…again.
Time was running out. And here I was, crying like a little girl.
I wiped my cheeks and ran to one of the trucks, needing to get back into town. The waft of energy struck me as I closed on the first of the vehicles, and I realized I’d damaged it when I’d ripped the place apart. I skirted the back of it, cursing, on my way to the other vehicle, only to stop cold in front of a pile of cylinders that had been knocked from the bed. Several of the end caps had come loose and lay scattered across the dirt.
My first instinct was to diver for cover, but a voice deep down laughed at me. The caps were off and there was no obvious increase in energy, no violent surge of magic spilling from within. Certain I’d regret doing it, I reached down and pulled one of the open cylinders up so I could look inside. My breath clutched at my lungs as I peered into it.
It was empty.
“What the…”
I looked again but there was nothing. The ground around the canister was unmarred, no hint of the damage one would expect from the release of the violent energy held hostage. My senses crept out on their own, the cold sting of magical energy peppering my skull, the source strangely more focused than I’d noticed before, even riding in the back of the truck alongside the lot of them. The lid of the cylinder stood out, dots of energy thrumming off each of the discarded caps. I snatched one up and turned it over.
A tiny gem was seated on the inside of the cap, melded to the cover. Magical energy fluttered at its core, crisp and sharp and fully contained within its crystalline boundaries. I slipped the lid back onto the cylinder I held and felt a swell of power, the metal of the tank amplifying the sense of magic it gave off.
Suddenly, it all made sense: The energy, the aliens, the old school dagger the angel carried and the piece I’d found. Gorath wasn’t looking to mine Feluris for the energy he needed to face off against Lucifer; he was looking to steal it from a much more convenient, and willing, source than the planet: Longinus.
The trap hadn’t been set for me, but for him. That’s why the aliens and angel had backed off. They didn’t want me, or even need me. The ex-AC was who they were looking for to refuel their boss and power him up enough so he could take on Lucifer. Longinus’ power would supplement Gorath’s own and turn him into a monster, and then some. And while the boost might not be enough to take the Devil on under normal circumstances, these were anything but normal circumstances.
Lucifer was waging a war, with God pulling his strings and parking him on the front lines. Daddy might still be a sun to the ant that is me, but he had to be burning through his magic with all he was doing. But how would…
My heart fell into a silent grave as the answer shoveled dirt overtop. It could only be Karra.
When Longinus and I had arg
ued about her keeping her mouth shut, I hadn’t known she was pregnant. That changed everything.
Demons weren’t like humans. Accidents didn’t happen. A demon woman would have to allow herself to become pregnant, a conscious decision on her part, or there would be absolutely no chance of her conceiving.
I slumped and fell against the side of the truck, barely able to hold myself upright. The world swam about my head.
Karra had wanted to get pregnant. She wanted a baby.
That was how Gorath knew Longinus was her father, how he’d managed to keep Karra under control. He knew because Karra had told him. Not because she wanted to, but she’d chosen the only course available to her to protect the child…our child. Karra was playing me and her father against Gorath in hopes we would come out on top. She knew we would be coming, knew for an absolute fact that Longinus would never give up trying to bring her home.
I stuffed my hand in my pocket and yanked out the blue gem, once more, sending wave after wave of sparking energy into it. Still, it sat lifeless. Jagged fear tore at my belly.
What if Gorath already had Longinus?
The dagger piece I’d picked up stunk of his essence. This hadn’t been the first trap they’d set for him, and they’d drawn blood. He could well be dead already. What then?
Gorath would have the full and unrestricted magic of the most powerful demon to ever wear the mantle of the Anti-Christ, that’s what. There would be no jump lag, no need to recharge.
Letting out the breath I hadn’t even noticed I’d been holding, I raced for the second truck. I needed to get back to town.
Eighteen
The trip back to Desboren was a blur of motion and jumbled thought that seemed to take forever. Able to reconcile the tracks left in the dirt with the direction I believed was the correct one, I hit the makeshift highway, which led away from the farmhouse trap, a short while later and hurtled down it until I reached the city limits. Once there, I didn’t even try to be inconspicuous.
The truck bounced and collided with every piece of debris on the road. Stones and trash ricocheted off the grill and bumper. The alien pedestrians, out for their daily whatever, ducked and dodged as I zoomed past, and I could hear the occasional glass shattering over the growl of the truck’s engine as shit flew in every direction. I didn’t care.
Longinus and I had been led to think the Eidolon held the key to Karra’s disappearance, and while that was probably true, it wasn’t the whole truth. The Eidolon were involved, no doubt, but Gorath had his hands up everyone’s asses deeper than we had suspected. While God and His boys had just won the battle to free Feluris, they were the conquering army no one had asked to come conquering. The world was ruined even more by their arrival, more of their people killed, and those who survived were afraid for their lives. The supposed good guys were anything but to the populace of Feluris. They were invaders, just like the Alitereans who’d been screwing the place over for the last fifty years.
Gorath, however, would be a savior to the people, especially if he were able to take down Longinus, the newest member of God’s holy rollers; the same guy who’d been running all over town wreaking havoc on their alien brethren and wrecking what was left of the town. It didn’t matter what his true intentions were, the Felurians were a broken people. They would grasp at any opportunity to reclaim their lives and Gorath was handing them that opportunity on a silver platter: roast Longinus head with an apple stuffed in his mouth.
I’d had it all wrong.
I understand shady, and on Earth I would have been right in picking it out, but I missed something here because of my presumptions, my own experiences. God and Jesus are the light of the world…where I come from. I would never have thought, even with my upbringing, that it could be any different until the bumpy road knocked some clarity into my head. Here, on Feluris, they hadn’t made their presence known as they had on Earth. God wasn’t seen as the Creator here, a history and religion to bolster his credibility, but the Destroyer. He didn’t exist until He came knocking the place down. The Felurians had no idea there was a supreme being who had dreamed them into existence, drafting them out of tiny pieces of Himself. There were no symbols of His existence in Desboren, no sign of a religion or creed that followed the edicts of God. He’d been an absentee deity in a world He’d left behind long ago.
While all that rumbled through my skull, I tore down the street until I was about a block from where I was headed, and then pulled to a screeching halt, off to the side of the road. Keys out of the ignition, I climbed out of the cab, yanked a gun from my holster, and started down the street. There was someone I needed to talk to. I’d risk folks seeing me strolling down the sidewalk armed, but I didn’t want Jo knowing I was on my way to his door.
When Jesus led us to his alien info snitch, I just assumed the guy was under the son’s thumb, even after I saw the Eidolon guy leave his shop. It made sense, at least then. Now, not so much. Jo’s endgame wasn’t to milk the Eidolon until the system fell apart. Rather, he was working with them…against Jesus.
Sooner or later, God would move on, the front advancing, and leave the planet behind again. What would the Felurians have then? Nothing but the barren husk of their home, burnt, pillaged and desiccated of its energy and resources by both sides of the battle. Why would they want that for a future? Biding their time and letting Gorath run a rebellion behind the scenes was far more productive. They could claim innocence, or at the very least, ignorance, if God won out and be no worse off than they were now. And if Gorath were capable of reaching off planet, as he probably would be once he claimed Longinus’ power, the alien could get a message to the Aliterean Consortium to assist his efforts against God. All hell would break loose then, the Felurians ignorantly caught in the middle of it again.
At the door to Jo’s shop, a decision circled inside my head, a vulture waiting to swoop. How do I spin this? The answer was obvious. I just needed to do what I do best: get lucky.
I opened the door and stepped inside, spotting Jo just on the other side of the same counter he’d hunkered down on the last time I’d been there. He looked up and smiled. The hesitation on his face, the flicker of emotion just before he got it under control, was subtle. If I hadn’t been specifically looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed.
He waved me inside. “Come, come. What a pleasant surprise.”
Gun out of sight behind me, I returned the smile—all teeth and scrunched nose—and sauntered over to the counter. “Just need some directions, that’s all,” I told him, all casual with a flip of my hand and a shake of my head.
Jo nodded as if he knew what the fuck I was talking about. As soon as I reached him, my hand shot across the intervening space and grabbed the alien by the scruff of his neck. His eyes went wide as he was yanked over the countertop and deposited on the floor on my side. He grunted when he hit and looked up to see the barrel of my gun hovering at his cheek.
“What is this?”
“Don’t play games with me.” My cheeks blossomed with heat, the act over. “I saw one of the Eidolon leave your shop and know you’re working with them.”
He raised his hands. “I don’t—”
Sometimes, examples must be made. Ask Azrael about that.
I yanked the gun from Jo’s face and shot him in the foot, pulling it back before he’d even had the chance to howl his agony. By the time the .45 was buried in his cheek again, he was gasping to catch his breath, tears spilling silver down his cheeks. A cold, gray chill passed over me, but I brushed it aside. Now was no time for squeamishness.
“Have you seen Longinus, the other man I was here with? You know, the big guy with the wild hair and bad attitude.” Irony stepped into the room, but it just kept on walking.
Jo nodded without hesitation, his eyes flickering between me and the oozing hole in his foot. “He was just here. Not long ago, looking for more information,” the alien whimpered. “Don’t hurt me.”
Admittedly, it was a little late for that request,
but I let the battle of semantics slide. “Where is he? Where did he go?”
“I-I found the one…the alien; the one you seek.” He nodded like a bobble head on crack. “The one who has his daughter.”
“You found him, huh?” It didn’t take a genius to recognize he was full of shit, and I would know. I reached down and yanked his shirt up over his head, twisting it around his neck to hold him still. There, just below the armpit, was the phoenix tattoo that marked him as Eidolon, drawn in angry red lines. I poked it with my gun. “Tell me everything or I’ll start blowing pieces off your toes and move my way up to more vital bits. Things you might really miss on those lonely nights alone, you know what I mean?”
He grunted against the constraint of the shirt, squeaking in agreement. I relaxed my grip on the shirt a little to make it easier for him to speak. If he was as much as weasel as I suspected, things were about to get interesting.
“I…” He drew a slow breath, his eyes quavering as they stared up at me. “Your friend is walking into an ambush.”
Score one for Captain Obvious. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“There are more than just my people there, the Eidolon, waiting to surprise him. They are…prepared for him, ready to meet the challenge of his alien magic; ready to capture his essence.”
The dagger! That or something similar. “The weapons they’re using: what are they for?”
He shrugged against the restraint. “I know only that they are used to steal away the spirit of those whose blood they draw.”
And there it was. Damn it! We’d killed a bunch of the aliens without so much as a whisper of a soul transfer, but if Iriaal had taken me out, he would have gotten all of my power in the deal. That was why he was using the knife. It wouldn’t do Gorath any good if the aliens killed Longinus or if the angel slipped up and initiated the transfer. However, if they were using a weapon that stored the energy, which gave him the means to appropriate it, to absorb it…