Axes and Angels: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Novel (Better Demons Series Book 1)

by Matthew Herrmann

  The giant spider tattoo danced on his face amid the flashing lights of the disco ball and the Latin script tattoos on his arm glowed as he pointed over my shoulder. I twisted my head just as Dickie Man raised a machine pistol in Spider Face’s direction—and by proxy, my direction—his finger sliding over the trigger.

  An intoxicated man stumbled in front of me as Spider Face held me back against his chest, and I grabbed the guest, slinging him to the floor toward the entrance, watching as the bullets exploded from Dickie Man’s muzzle.

  This is it, I thought. They taught you in the military that you can’t dodge a bullet—let alone a stream of fully automatic gunfire. The key was to be behind cover when a gunfight broke out.

  Either that or fire first, and since I didn’t even have a gun on me …

  I was dead.

  Except … I wasn’t. Maybe time stops just before you die; if so, then that might partially have explained the bullets bunching up and hovering a few inches from my chest.

  Then I realized the slight tinge of a bluish aura surrounding Spider Face and me like a forcefield, its protective arc trapping the bullets. That explained the bluish glow emanating from Spider Face’s tattoos on his bare arms—he was somehow commanding magic through his magic tattoos. Pushing back the bullets from us. But I was reasonably sure he was human, and thus without access to magic … Regardless of the explanation (who can really explain magic anyway?), I was glad the shield had protected me from the bullets. Typhon’s gang really, really hated the Zeus crew.

  Made sense, they were two of the biggest gang factions in NYC. And I had just inadvertently given them reason enough to beef it out in a public place full of civilians.

  Great.

  “Let go of me,” I said, tilting my head up at Spider Face still holding me protectively against his chest.

  He just grunted, and I saw slight wrinkles starting to crease his cheeks as he grunted with the effort of maintaining the bluish forcefield, a clear sign of him burning time, the cost of using magic in this GoneGod World. “You’re … welcome,” he managed, his eyes on Dickie Man who had slapped a fresh magazine into his machine pistol. As soon as the new magazine was expended, Spider Face shoved me aside and charged at Typhon’s lieutenant with a war cry.

  Damn …

  I turned and surveyed the carnage around me. Bistro tables lay overturned and splintered off on the sides, their tablecloths dotted with bullet holes. Most of the patrons had already vacated, and luckily I didn’t see any wounded or dead lying about.

  Thank the GoneGods for small miracles …

  The sheer amount of brass bullet casings and flattened bullets lying in neat piles around the dance floor was mind-boggling. It seemed the Brotherhood of Zeus members’ magic tattoo shields attracted the brunt of the bullets like magnets, keeping the civilians safe. For that, the Zeus gang were almost heroes in my book. Almost.

  They were trying to take me against my will—AKA kidnap me—and that was definitely not something a hero did.

  Let them try. I felt bad enough for endangering all these people. But the Zeus gang wasn’t supposed to “come a calling” so soon. I remembered Orion saying that bad luck came in threes. I guess he was right. Gan, Lucy, the Zeus gang …

  Speaking of Lucy, she was taking cover behind an overturned table, flinging throwing stars at some Zeus gang members. At least she was. The lights flickered and then she was gone, slinking through the darkness.

  “Theo, look out!” Simon shouted.

  A female gang member sprinted up to me, the blue bandana in her ponytail perking up as she pulled up short. She reached out a hand with blue nail polish and grabbed my wrist.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  I flashed her a faux-scared look, taking in the septum ring and the dark eyeshadow and lipstick on her face. As did the rest of the Zeus gang, she wore a hooded cloak with the sleeves cut off.

  She regarded my scared look. “Everything will be fine. You must come with—”

  I threw my arm up. It impacted against the side of her neck and she stumbled but regained her footing. Oddly enough, she didn’t try to hurt me back. “You need to come with us,” she said.

  “About that,” I said, my eyes searching for Arachne but she was no longer on her stage. “I already have a plan. And you’re not in it.”

  The Zeus woman lunged for me and I backstepped, deliberately placing a smattering of spent bullet casings between her and me. She slipped on them like marbles and I threw an arm out and clotheslined her just below the neck, driving her sternum backward to the floor. That should have taken care of her, but as I was moving past her, her hand shot out and grabbed my ankle.

  I spun away and located Arachne scrambling in the dark near the back and almost couldn’t believe my eyes. She was spinning shields made of spiderwebs and holding them up as patrons ran past her out the back door. Every now and then, she would send a web out along the floor and collect some spent bullets and then sling them like a sack of quarters at the gang members still fighting each other.

  I felt bad that Arachne had had to reveal her lower half like this—on her big DJ debut—but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that seeing her in full spidey action was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen as she alternatingly protected the people behind her and attacked the thugs out front. She was literally saving lives! Not only had Arachne proved herself as an excellent undercover agent tonight but she also had good fighting instincts.

  I was making my way toward Arachne when what felt like a hoof slammed into my back, hurtling me forward onto the top of a still-standing bistro table. It wasn’t standing long because my belly landed on it with an “Oomph” and the round top portion splintered off the metal leg holding it up.

  “GOT YOU.” A shadow fell over me and it took no imagination to discern the mammoth silhouette of the Minotaur looming above me. I had no trouble hearing his booming voice even with the fire alarm still screaming in the background.

  I sat up, raising the round table top in both hands like a shield, twisting my body to the side as one of the Minotaur’s hooved fists punched through it. Releasing my grip on it, I rolled to the side, springing to my feet and launching a kick at a bare spot on the Minotaur’s hairy body. It felt like kicking a brick, and the top of my foot ached as I limped back a step.

  “HAH!”

  The Minotaur smashed the rest of the table off his arm with his other hooved fist. Then he faced me, tucked his curved horns and prepared to charge.

  “Orion told me about you and his little secret!” I blurted out over the screeching fire alarms.

  “He did WHAT? CONFOUND IT—YOU SHALL NOT LIVE TO TELL ANOTHER SOUL!”

  And then he charged, and now I really, really wanted to know what had gone down between Orion and the Minotaur back in ancient Greece.

  But to find out, I needed to follow the plan and get to Orion … a plan that these meddling Zeus people were so intent on ruining.

  Yeah, I said it. Meddling.

  With the Minotaur’s eyes clouded by rage, I easily sidestepped his charge, swiveling out of the way as the horns on his massive head impaled the wall, sending shockwaves through the entire building.

  “ARGHH! NOT AGAIN!”

  While I smirked (OK, gloated) Blue Rag appeared at my side, a streak of blood falling from a cut on his cheek. He looked out of breath but still capable of fighting me if necessary. “What are you doing consorting with the enemy?” he asked.

  Not trusting my words to get me out of this bind, I squinted at him as if I didn’t understand.

  Blue Rag shook his head irritably. “Typhon’s crew.”

  “What?” I said. “I’ve got bills to pay. I’m not allowed to service other clients?” (Yeah that definitely came out sounding way wrong …)

  The gang leader jabbed a finger toward the Minotaur fighting to free himself off to the side. “You cannot work with them—they’ve been our sworn enemy for millennia!”

  Millennia? GoneGodDamn! I hadn’t
expected their beef to go back that far—the city of New York wasn’t even 400 years old. I huffed in a breath. “How could I have known I couldn’t work with them?”

  “It was in the can-tract!”

  “Oh …”

  An orangish flame shot up from behind one of the club’s side bars and I just had time to think, Aw crap … as a Typhon gang member flicked a lighter and lit a rag stuffed into an open bottle of vodka. He tossed the Molotov cocktail at Blue Rag—an offensive move yet again targeted at me by association.

  And I swear I would have been quick enough to dodge it, but all the same, I was glad for the magic tattoo forcefield Blue Rag erected around us, and the glass bottle shattered on impact, vodka coating the invisible sphere’s surface, and igniting around us in a ball of fire.

  Blue Rag gripped my arm, his face strained almost to the point of inhuman agony. The hint of crow’s feet sprouted from the corner of his eyes, almost masked by his teardrop tattoos. His tattoos were starting to glow weaker now, and I wondered what happened when the magic in his tattoos—his life force—gave out.

  The blueish tint of the forcefield started to dwindle and I had a pretty good idea …

  The flames engulfing us whooshed upward toward the ceiling; the heat was now almost unbearable. It was now that I noticed fires sprouting up all over the room, anything made of wood or cloth igniting like kindling—even that pain-in-the-ass-to-assemble custom stage I’d helped Arachne construct. Typhon’s men were real bastards.

  The sprinkler system kicked on, doing nothing to put out the flaming ball but ruining whatever hadn’t been touched by the fires. Good thing I didn’t own the bar; this was going to be one expensive repair. (Of course, the building owner probably had insurance, a concept I never understood.)

  I peered through the fiery veil separating me from the sneering Typhon gang member standing just a few feet away, getting drenched by the sprinklers. He never even saw Lucy sneak up and pummel him from behind with a four-fisted punch combo that dropped him to the floor, which was nice—but a fire extinguisher would’ve been nicer. Lucy flashed me a helpless look.

  Well, it wasn’t like I was a stranger to burning alive—or burning food.

  “Kameno tost!” I heard my father’s voice say in my mind, in reference to his cooking attempts when I was growing up, a talent, I’d sadly inherited.

  The flames licked hungrily around the bluish orb, undeterred by the sprinkler system.

  Any moment now …

  “Stayin’ Alive”

  The shield collapsed.

  Blue Rag and I didn’t become Human Torches though; the forcefield popped like a giant dewdrop, magically extinguishing the flames. I did the stop, drop and roll routine anyway, just to be safe.

  When I stood up, thick smoke swirled around the room, making it difficult to see as the only lights now were the backup-generator-powered EXIT signs and the fires fighting to stay alive amid the downpour of city water. Lucy had disappeared again.

  “Theo!” Garfunkel said.

  A thug with a bandana flashed toward me, and I didn’t check to see what color it was as I latched an arm over theirs and spun, slinging them to the ground with the force of their own weight, knocking them out cold.

  Unfortunately that caused my cell phone to fling itself out of my pocket and onto the floor. It was too dark and smoky to see where it had gone …

  Crap!

  “Guys,” I shouted to my familiars, “this would go a whole lot smoother if you just morphed into your constellation Libra form like you did in Typhon’s Arena.”

  “We can’t!” Simon said exasperatedly. “Watch out!”

  I ducked a blow. “Why? Performance anxiety?”

  Garfunkel shook his head.

  “Then what? Why won’t you two talk to me about it?”

  All this time being magically bonded together and I’d had no clue I had a badass female constellation riding shotgun. I mean, for crying out loud, Simon and Garfunkel still hadn’t told me their real names. Were they a constellation? A good-and-evil angel duo? A two-in-one combo deal incomprehensible to humans?

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and I spun, sending a straight punch directly at my new attacker; it sailed right through said attacker’s face.

  “LK!”

  “Theo! Thoust on fire!”

  I stared at him, still in my fighter’s stance. “Figuratively? Or lit—” I craned my neck around at the fire spreading up my back. Oh shit—

  There was a flash of white and the next thing I knew, LK was pelting my back with his toga. I glanced back at him and my eyes went wide in horror. “Put some clothes on!”

  LK flapped the toga at me once more, grinning with the proud satisfaction of a job well done. “The fire is now extinguished—”

  “Clothes!” I said, and then, “Thanks,” but I wasn’t sure he heard me over the wailing of the fire alarm.

  “What?” LK yelled back at me, stepping in front of me, his face inches from mine.

  I angled away from his rather wrinkly … body as I yelled, “Where are your clothes?”

  LK scratched his greenish chin with a puzzled expression. “Mine oaths?”

  “Your clothes! You’re naked!”

  LK looked down, and I swear to the GoneGods if he gave some line about the perks of being free from his burden to guard that ring in the cemetery, I would have clocked him—er ghost-clocked him, I guess. But his pearly eyes nodded acquiescently. “I see.”

  “Where’s your ‘lich king robe?’ ” I asked as I searched the building’s dark, rainy interior for Arachne. It was still nearly impossible to see due to the smoke and flickering flames.

  LK cleared his throat. “I did not appreciate the fit of this silly ‘toga’ with my robe underneath …”

  The roof somewhere above us groaned, and a sprinkler line burst, sputtering us with a gush of water.

  I grabbed LK’s drenched wrist. “Come on!”

  “Yes,” he said, lowering the wadded-up toga to conceal his private parts as I led him to the back of the club. Behind us, near the club’s entrance, police sirens blared and I turned in time to see some wheezing gang members stumbling outside with their hands up.

  Just before we reached the back door, Arachne skittered inside and stopped as she spotted me, her soaked hair and tight red blouse clinging to her perfect wet body. “Theo! That’s the last of the civilians—I mean people. Come on!”

  “On it,” I said. “Look, I’m really sorry about the club …”

  She flashed me a devil may care smile. “I’m not the slightest bit sorry to see Athena’s club burn to the ground.”

  “Arachne, it’s just a name. Athena doesn’t actually own this club—”

  My voice was drowned out by the wailing sirens of fire trucks pulling up and I waved her out the back door. I urged LK out too as I threw a last glance back at the ruined shadows, scoffing at a minotaur-sized hole in the side of the wall. I saw no sign of Lucy.

  I was about to turn toward the back door when a shadow blurred up behind me, and I only just managed to throw up a wrist in front of my face as a piano wire garrote slipped over my head. Dickie Man’s hard body pressed up against my back as he jerked the deadly wire back toward him, the cord digging into my skin.

  I couldn’t breathe. And already lightheaded from the smoke and exertion of my previous fighting, I felt like doubling over.

  But I couldn’t because of Typhon’s lieutenant pulling the garrote backward against my throat, straightening me back up.

  “I can’t watch!” Simon squealed, coughing and sputtering from my right shoulder.

  I let my military training take over, sending my knee upward and then my heel clicking downward onto the man’s foot. He grunted but he was a true professional, disregarding the pain and not slackening his grip in the slightest.

  I knew I had only a few moments of consciousness left to act before my wrist fell to the side and the wire most likely decapitated me, what with the force this guy had. The
garrote was cutting into my wrist, trying to gouge into my bone. Arching my back, I folded my heel under my butt and struck out at Dickie Man’s leg.

  My first strike punched into the meat of his thigh; I drew my heel out like a staple gun and slammed it back again but he moved his leg and my spike snapped off as it embedded in the wall.

  The man cursed but didn’t let go and I reached up and yanked the end of one of his handlebars. His mustache tore off with a gasp.

  That did it.

  His grip on the garrote laxed and I slipped it up and over my head as I wrenched free and spun diagonally like a deadly top, sending the back of my heel against the side of his thick neck.

  There was an oomph and he collapsed out through the doorway into a dimly lit alley.

  I stepped out after him, searching for Arachne and LK, but instead of my friends, I found Lucy with her two upper arms wielding a set of matching short gold knives that oddly resembled the fancy bangles now missing from her wrists.

  She didn’t attack me though, for once. She grabbed me with one of her free hands as she pulled me around the building’s corner toward a yellow Audi hatchback parked in the side alley.

  “Get in!”

  The fire alarm wasn’t as loud out here but its sonic brutality was still alarming (sorry).

  I wiped sweat and sprinkler water from my forehead. “I’m not leaving my friends.”

  “They’re fine,” Lucy grunted. “But if Typhon’s men get their hands on you before we can make things right with them, you’re dead and so is Orion.”

  I didn’t want to go with Lucy, but she was right. If I dawdled in the alley, Typhon’s men were bound to find me, and I’d only be endangering Arachne and LK if they were with me when that happened.

  I got in the passenger seat, the cloth seat soaking up the excess water from my wet clothes. For some reason, I checked my ruined hair in the rearview mirror but instead of my hair, I focused on the raging muscled bull-man out in the alley charging straight at the hatchback’s rear.

  “Lucy—”

  “I see him,” Lucy sputtered and with a twist of her wrist, the car’s engine fired to life.