“My name is Jenni. Sorry about my manners a bit ago, it’s been a day and a half,” Jenni said taking the cup of coffee and smelling it for a few seconds, then taking a sip.
Nick knew that humans and eternals don’t get along, and both feared each other in their own ways. He never would have guessed the god breakers would start a fight in the undercity, especially when it came to the vorpals. The spirit king would disapprove, but if the king did, why didn’t he show up to stop them?
“You think the vorpals are up to something?” Nick said scratching the side of his head. He could see Cameron in the backroom messing with different weapons, examining them, feeling their blades, and swinging them. What is that old man doing? He thought.
He wondered how bad Cameron was injured, why did he come out to defend him. Usually, Cameron would let him fend for himself, learn from the art of failing. There were times Nick would get into fights with bullies from school and the old man would just stare and let the kids have their fun, and he would wonder why didn’t this old bastard step in and stop them. It wasn’t until later in life he learned that some situations had better ways out of them. Nick didn’t have to throw the first punch when called names, but he did.
“Vorpals wouldn’t try to start shit with the god breakers for no reason. I know that boy died, and looking how you look right now I’m guessing you got attacked too,” Jenni said shaking her head at Nick.
Nick nodded.
“Do you hate vorpals?” Abigail said to Jenni massaging her hands together looking down at the table, her hair blocking her expression.
“No…I do not. I had a friend who became one. At the time I didn’t understand, the world was still new to me. The unknown scared the shit out of me. But the more I spent in the undercity the more those people became my home,” Jenni said moving Abigail’s hair away from covering her face and smiling at her.
“I…gotta go see what Cameron is up to,” Abigail said standing up and walking away covering her face even more.
“Man I have never seen her so red, since knowing her. You got that girl smiling from ear-to-ear,” he said letting out a chuckle.
Jenni got up from the table and stretched her arms. “Abigail is a cute girl, she looks good when she smiles. Maybe next time I run into her I’ll make her something nice to chow down on.”
Nick got up from the table too to stretch his body. He could feel his leg feeling better but still felt a small sting when he extended it too much. He saw Cameron hammering on something, sparks illuminating goggles that he was wearing. The old man was focused, like a master carving out an art piece out of stone, crafting a beautiful sculpt.
“Do you know anything about cults?” Nick said cracking his fingers.
“Cults? not really. I only know about the ones from documentaries from before the awakening, none after it. If anyone knew much about them it would be Mary. We can try to see her in a bit and ask her. just gotta be careful,” Jenni said taking one of her daggers out, looking at the blade. He hoped Mary was okay, that the god breakers didn’t do anything harsh to her for not only being a human with magic but being in the undercity.
“I know Janet is gonna be pissed at me but we got to get to the undercity, find out how to contact people from one of these cults, and see if they know anything. There might be a larger cult in the works up here,” Nick said.
Cameron opened the door to the backroom and let out a big burp. “Boy, I have been holding that in for a while it feels.”.The old man went to the counter and drank some coffee, straight from the press, with a smile setting on his face.
“You done in there Cameron? I and Jenni are about to head out,” he said walking towards the door.
“Not so fast, you are not leaving right away. I saw you out there and how that piece of shit magic you bought almost got you killed. If you are going out to the undercity you are going to end up in a fight and you need to be prepared,” Cameron said rushing to the back room and coming out with the weapon that he had been working on. The blade was long and thick, The handle black and red. He then sheathed it in a scabbard that was black with small crosses that were printed on it.
“What is this?” Nick said to Cameron grabbing the sword from the old man's grasp. It was so long and weighed like a feather.
“It’s an old weapon, from a time long ago. I call it Lightsworn. Use it to help you, Nick. I know you won’t use your magic, but you can’t use other magic that isn’t yours, it's just risky, and it’s gonna get you killed,” Cameron said pressing his heavy hand on Nick's shoulder. “It was one of the weapons your father used when he was first starting.”
He never received such a gift from anyone. His grandpa gave him a leather coin purse before he died, it had a cool cartoon character that he loved on it. One of the things he missed, and just never found again after his house fire caused his family to move in with family for a few years. It was a beauty to look at. Seeing how much Cameron cared to keep him safe made his eyes start to swell. His father was someone Nick loved dearly, and always held his memory close to him. A treasure he kept in him. It was something he didn’t want to let go of. He had so many memories of his father, his mother was a different story. “I don’t know what to say, Cameron. I can see why my dad always had something nice to say when it came to you,” he said with a smile on his face. “I’ll try to do right by his memory.”
21
Janet exited the elevator and walked past a few officers talking to each other by the lockers, starring, and grinning at her as she rushed by. Always looking, just starring at me like I don’t belong. Thinking that I don’t do enough, hell I put in more hours than they do. She always had issues when it came to fitting in with other people. She had naturally curly hair, taller than most of the other people and her mother taught her not to take any shit from anyone. I’m not going to let them bring me down, they can look at me until their faces turn red. Can’t take away what I love to do, I’ll be the one that will be remembered as one of the best drakens.
She opened the office door to the chief of the Draken police. The room was lit by a fireplace, had a large television, a huge stone desk, and a window the size of a small room looking out to the city. Lights littered the city, breathing and saying hello. A man was in the chair on the phone leaning back with a grin. His hair was gray, he wore a ten-gallon hat, with cowboy boots and a thick mustache.
“Chief Briggs. I and my accomplice found more information on the aerion death,” Janet said walking towards his desk. She took out her phone and scrolled through the photos until she landed on the symbol that Nick found.
“I’ll call you back,” Briggs said hanging up the phone. “Jones…how many GOD DAMN TIMES do I have to tell YOU not to come barging in here especially when I'm on the FUCKING phone.”
Janet started to shake a bit, she could see the muscles in his neck and arms start to tense. “So…Sorry sir. I just got new information on the ongoing case and I wanted to get it to you as soon as possible,” she said placing the phone in front of him. “It may help us find out who was topside when they weren’t supposed to me.” Being proud of hard work was something she always loved to do for her job. Work hard, play hard.
He turned his seat and looked at the image. Looking at it close up and then leaning back again tossing the phone back to Janet. “Don’t worry about that case girl. It’s about to be cold anyway, no one to look for just some aerion that got some powder that was trying to have a good time. Just another lost person hanging around the wrong people, wanting to party with bloodsuckers, case closed,” Briggs said with a smirk on his face.
“Sir you have to keep going with this case. We have to find out who did this. You can’t just let it slip by. We have to give everyone their justice, no matter how long it takes. Isn’t that what we strive to be about since the awakening?” Janet said leaning over the stone desk slamming her fist. To let something go cold was shutting the door and hoping one day twenty years down the line another person would open it back up.
> “Oh please, you know as well as me that we only did that as a PR stunt. We don’t mean that Jones. You forgot where you came from before you got picked to be a guardian. You were one of us,” Briggs said getting up from the chair. “Must have been nice to stand in front of our lord and savior.”
“I’m still one of you. Just because I’m a guardian doesn’t mean I’m different, it just means I have more responsibility. You know the responsibility that you have TO PROTECT and SERVE and it is up to us to keep that or bend it until it means nothing. We have this new chance to do the good our parents hoped they saw when they were our age,” she said shaking her head. She knew many in her position used their power for evil, but she also knew there were many just like her who truly wanted to do good with the uniform they wore, the badge they held, and the image they represented.
Briggs took out his handgun and started examining the etchings on it. Roses with thorns. “We have more important matters at this moment. As you know we had two murdered in the undercity. One was a vorpal and the other a human. You should be working on that, we have to calm those in the undercity Jones.”
He’s just trying to move away from the aerion death. She, use to respect her chief a lot more whenever she was a rookie. He was someone that had a thirst to solve a case, someone that would go in head first and get things done. Now he was just someone who sat at his desk yelling at people and got the occasional blowjob from one of his girlfriends. You use to be so much better. You wanted to leave a fire trail of justice, now look at you, you shithead. She thought.
“You know we don’t have enough to go on. They were attacked brutally, and the only other person there barely got away and we can’t even find them. So you expect me to just juggle these two cases?” Janet said pacing around the room.
“No Jones, I expect you to follow my fucking orders. You’re dropping the aerion case, no butts. You are going to work on these murders and I need you to find out who did this. This is more important,” Briggs said pointing his gun at the window.
“Why is it more important?” she asked.
“It just is girl.”
“Fucking tell me right now. You want me to drop my case give me a good reason why. I’m waiting, SIR.”
“The vorpals think that what happened is an attack on them. They think because it was an incident that happened so close to another one where a gargoyle got beaten up. They think there are some random acts of violence against their kind happening, and I can’t have that. I can’t have them thinking we are going to war with them.”
“Isn’t that where any treaty leads to eventually?”
Briggs stood silent and walked closer to the window. He rolled his hand into a fist and struck it, making it crack, leaving bloodstains on his knuckles. “You want a fucking war? You fucking remembered what happened last time goddammit.”
“Look I didn’t mean to piss you off. I’ll look into these murders and I’ll try to find this person, but I’m not going to stop looking into the death of the aerion,” Janet said turning around and walking out of his office, slamming the door behind her.
22
Janet and officer Bran entered a small run-down building that was in the crime-ridden section of the city. A part of the city where screams were heard from a distance, homeless with tents under a bridge. Sometimes she would go to one of the tents and sit down sharing food with a person, they would converse, she would still treat them as human. To her anyone in their city was part of the community as a whole, and she embraced anyone who needed just a shoulder to cry on. It had broken windows, rats that would dart across the ground, and a lot of shelves, and furniture that was full of dust. It was five stories tall and had stairs that were cracked, the paint was gone, and was as sturdy as paper. It was old, smelled of piss and shit, but she remembered it as her old local library. Her mother would take her every weekend to just spend hours reading and finding new books.
“You know me and my siblings use to race up and down those stairs when we were kids? The librarians would get mad and tell us to behave, that it was a quiet area. I didn’t know how much silence and being in my headspace would be such a rewarding experience until I got older,” Janet said shining a flashlight at the stairs. “It was just how we passed the time when mom was busy working her second job.”
“That must of been some fun times. I never had anyone to be around when I was younger. I did have my books though, loved reading fantasy, and science fiction. My mom would always brag to others about how good I was. Kids would just call me teachers, it was different for me,” Bran said looking under a desk. “I would smile all the time, the others would comment on it saying it makes you weaker, less than. That we always had to be prepared for war, that the humans would turn on us again. I didn’t want to battle, didn’t like to fight. I just wanted to help, but maybe I am less.”
Janet went over to Bran and put her arm around him. “Hey, out of everyone on our team, you are the one I like to be around. You’re the real deal Bran, and your smiling lifts me during the day, so keep at it. Plus you are a catch, anyone who even gets remotely close to you ends up a better person,” she said smiling at him. She knew Bran for years, met his family, and even went to a few movies with him. Other Draken police would give him a hard time, but he just kept going, kept working and doing his job, and she admired that about him. The stares from others bothered her, not because of who she was but because of who he wasn’t. Humans were afraid of eternals more than anything.
The two of them walked around the room they were in, and looked behind shelves, under furniture, and found nothing. From a distance coming from above them, they both heard a scream, it was a woman screaming bloody murder. Janet pointed the flashlight up the stairs to try and see if anyone was up to them and began rushing up, motioning for Bran to follow her. “Someone came here before us, could be the person we are looking for,” Janet said keeping an ear out for any sudden noise.“I guess your tip was right Bran, there was someone here,” she said running towards one of the rooms on the third floor, as the scream began growing louder as they got closer.
“Gotta be right sometimes. I just hope it’s not too late to save this woman, no matter if they are our suspect or not, we got to help,” Bran said grabbing his pistol aiming it towards the floor rushing to the room that had a light flickering on and off.
“Help me, they have me,” A woman said. The light flickered on and off, the woman stood in the middle of the room. She had dark brown hair, and was wearing a dress that was torn, muddy, and reeked of sewer water. She was holding a knife to her throat.
“Hey now, we are here to help you. Ma’am my name is Janet Jones lets not do anything rash,” she said putting her gun away and motioning for Bran to do the same.
“You don’t understand I saw it. It’s a lie and now they are here for me,” the woman said, her eyes bloodshot, tears running down her cheeks. Something broke inside the woman, she was shaking, her eyes almost lifeless.
“Who is coming for you? Tell me, maybe me and my partner can help you,” She said inching her way towards the woman. “We can stop whoever is coming for you, just drop the knife.”
“I saw my friend murdered. MURDERED IN FRONT OF ME,” the woman said pointing the knife at Janet. “She didn’t have a chance, she didn’t have a fucking chance…” The poor girl was hurting. Not having your friend alive, people chasing you like the world was against you.
“I know honey. I know and you must be so scared, so angry, and so tired. Let's go downstairs take you down to the station, get you all warmed up, and fed. Just stay calm it’s going to be okay,” Janet said placing her hand on the blade. The cold steel brushing against her skin. “I am going to keep you safe. I am going to make sure no one hurts you, that no one follows you. You just gotta let yourself live darling.”
Before Janet could grab the knife from the woman a giant shark with legs began rushing into the room like a battering ram, destroying the walls and doors that it rushed through. The three of them fell
back a great distance and crashed into the back of the room and slammed into a chalkboard. The shark's teeth were the only visible thing, its body hidden in the dark and only being visible for a moment when the light would flicker on.
“Fuck, is everyone okay?” Janet said getting out her pistol, struggling to get up from the floor. “Took the damn wind out of me, hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“It’s them, they are after me,” the woman said clinging to Bran, her eyes widen, and her body shaking.
“I need you to get this lady out of here Bran, you need to get out before this hybrid tries to feed,” she said pointing her pistol at the hybrid.
“I can’t leave you here by yourself, that thing is going to kill you,” Bran said holding the woman up, shining his light at the hybrid. Its teeth were sharp and metallic. Its eyes were black, staring at its prey.
“I said go NOW,” She said running towards the hybrid. “You wanna start some shit you better learn to finish it.”
Bran and the woman darted out of the room, leaving Janet with the huge hybrid being. They towered over her, exhaling, flexing their muscular arms as the light flickered on and off. “I GOTTA KILL, GOTTA FEED. LITTLE LADY, YOU SHOULDN'T GET IN THE WAY. THE SHARK CLAN WILL KEEP HUNTING,” the hybrid said rushing towards Janet, taking any furniture or piece of wall with them like a rampaging tornado.
Janet felt her body tense for a moment but calmed almost instantly. She felt like she was in good hands. Closing her eyes, she began to pray. “Under your wings, you are my hiding place. I find refuge in you to protect me wherever I go, to keep harm away from me. I pray for your protection almighty, on this day,” she said shooting a single shot from her pistol. The bullet darted out of the weapon glowing radiantly, like a shooting star in the night sky. It made its way towards the hybrid and pierced their chest and illuminated their body. The hybrid slowed down, but not slow enough. Their body hit Janet like a train and went off the rails sending them both crashing out of a window and onto the pavement.
The God Breaker's Ruin Page 12