Authors: Tim Marquitz
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 argued 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…
“Where did you send him?” I nearly shredded
my throat as I screamed.
Jo rambled off directions. They were barely
comprehensible, but they weren’t exactly engineering schematics, either. I knew
pretty much where he meant, having bounced around town as much as I had since
we’d arrived. The place wasn’t close, but I had a truck to get me there.
“How many of your people are there? And the
others?” I asked, suddenly thinking it would be a good idea to know a little
something about what I was racing off to confront. There’d have to be a gang of
them if they thought they had a shot against Longinus, even as weakened as he
was.
The answer was what I imagined: a shit ton.
I sighed, out of questions. Jo trembled as
he hunkered at my feet. A voice inside told me I should just shoot him and get
it over with, kill him before he alerted his people, but I couldn’t bring
myself to do it. Normally, I’d just blame my bout of conscience on my mother
and how she’d raised me, but that philosophy had recently imploded. I didn’t
know what to think anymore. Maybe I just wasn’t as
goth
as Daddy. Still, I couldn’t let Jo screw things up more than he already had.
With a snap of my wrist, I hit him in the
head with the pistol grip. A watermelon
thump
resounded as steel met skull, and he collapsed to the floor, lights out. His
breathing was slow and shallow, his chest barely rising, but he was still
alive. That was as much as I bothered to check. Longinus was in deep shit and
needed me, as unlikely as that sentence sounded to a sane mind.
Karra would never forgive me if I let her
father die. Shit, she wouldn’t survive to be mad if Longinus died. There was no
doubt about that.
A fire lit under my ass, I ran out the door
and headed for the truck. If Gorath had emerged from the shadows to go after
Longinus, it was pretty clear I wasn’t gonna be much help on my own. And since
there was only one person I could turn to, that was where I went first.
~
“I’m sorry, Frank, but there’s nothing I
can do.” Baalth shrugged, the bones of his shoulders poking out beneath the
swoop of his cloak. “I have no contacts upon this damnable planet, nor do I have
any resources to tap. Even Cyrill has not returned from the mission I tasked
her with after sending her on with you.”
I resisted the urge to whistle and look
away, but if Cyrill hadn’t come back yet, that meant Baalth didn’t know I’d
cornered and threatened her. A cold shiver prickled my skin as his dark eyes
appraised me. At least I hoped he didn’t know.
“That’s cool,” I told him, but it really
wasn’t what I meant. I was rushing off to rescue Longinus, but I kept seeing
flashing images of a guillotine and my balls as I contemplated how things were
gonna go down. Can’t say I was inspired.
I thanked Baalth—for nothing—and slipped
out of his ramshackle man-den and started off down the road. It looked like I
was the cavalry.
Custer was fucked.