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

by Matthew Herrmann

  I extended my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  Daryl shook it firmly but in an equally gentle manner.

  I’d heard dwarves were real ever since the gods had left but I’d never seen one before. They were said to live only underground and I’d never crossed paths with one although my trade did involve quite a bit of underground exploration and spelunking.

  Let me sum up this dwarf’s appearance: five-feet-five, broad shoulders, red ropey mustache and braided beard nearly touching the ground, huge ornate belt buckle … and jorts.

  Yep you heard me. Handmade jean shorts.

  Above said jorts he wore a fanny pack, no doubt full of gold coins and other dwarf treasure. Oh, also his skin was radiant and dark—almost orangish—which made no sense for an underground dweller. In fact, with the pointed metal helm on his head coupled with his mustache and beard, his orangish face resembled a jack-o-lantern in the flickering campfire light. He must have sensed my confusion because he cocked a bushy eyebrow at me.

  “I know it’s the twenty-first century,” I said, “but … you do live underground, right?”

  The dwarf chortled and tapped at the pick axe strapped to his back. “Mostly, lass. The sun, it burns my kind. We usually only come topside at night for fresh air.”

  I nodded slowly, uncomprehendingly. “But your skin is so … it’s tanner than mine!”

  The dwarf slapped his fanny pack but instead of the sound of gold coins chinking together there was the sound of … pills rattling. He chuckled. “Ahem, vitamin D supplements. Don’t enter your mine without em.”

  Made sense.

  “But your face … your arms … your …” I swallowed. “Legs … You’re so tan!” Was I jealous? Hell yes I was! Here was a guy who spent the majority of his life underground supplementing vitamin D and yet he made me look albino.

  The dwarf shuffled about embarrassedly. “Tanning booth. Most, ahem, dwarves use them. To fit in with human society. I personally don’t mind. I find them warm.” He smiled. “Like the forges and lava rivers of my old home.”

  The sincerity of his words put me at ease. And here I thought dwarves were supposed to be stuck-up, treasure-hoarding little excavators. He didn’t seem so bad to me. Of course, I’d barely just met the man.

  Lucy flashed me a grin. “I knew you’d like him. He’s—as you humans say—'good people.’ ”

  The dwarf beamed, I sighed and the tracking sigil on my arm glowed faintly.

  I cleared my throat. “Lucy, you mentioned one of your partners could do something about … this?”

  Daryl chuckled. “Oh, why that would be the short one.”

  Short one? I thought. Shorter than a dwarf?

  “Yes,” Lucy said with a glance at my glowing magic tattoo. “We better get that taken care of. Follow me.”

  Daryl and I followed Lucy a short distance along a narrow footpath blown over by fallen leaves. All of a sudden, a breeze kicked up, wafting the scent of fried bacon and fresh coffee up my nostrils; my stomach grumbled.

  “Your partner can cook?” I said.

  Lucy hesitated, then smiled as we came to a recently extinguished campfire with a cast iron skillet suspended over it. Next to the campfire, a stainless-steel carafe of coffee rested on a tree stump.

  “Clio, wake up!” Lucy said as she drew a coffee thermos from her duffel bag and poured some coffee into it.

  Beside the tree stump, a tiny bedroll on the ground began to stir, and then a nine-inch-tall figure climbed out and stretched.

  Oh no, I thought. Don’t tell me Lucy is working with a …

  Lucy cleared her throat. “Theo, meet Clio. Clio, meet Theo.”

  I shook my head slowly.

  Gazing up at me from beside the towering tree stump, blinking sleep from her tiny eyes was …

  A pixie.

  “Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The Haunted Mine”

  The pixie waved a smooth tiny palm up at me. She looked friendly enough, but how can I put it? She was dressed … she was dressed like a stripper. Knee-high leather boots, fishnet stockings, tight leather miniskirt and black blouse beneath a form-fitting leather jacket. Her blonde hair was bob-cut and cute, her eyes blue like sapphires. She slumped her shoulders forward in a sort of sultry yet innocent posture that I didn’t like.

  Someone who did like it: Garfunkel. “Oh hello,” he said in a husky melodramatic voice. Even Simon seemed to be in an overly pleasant mood, and we were standing in the woods after midnight near a haunted mine.

  “Uh guys?” I said

  “Hello yourself,” the blonde bombshell pixie said, batting her eyelids up at both of my familiars.

  Yep, that’s right. Except for me, pixies are the only other creatures that can see my familiars, that is except for when they combine into their super-form—the incarnation of the constellation Libra.

  Lucy knew about pixies’ unique ability so her teaming up with one had to be part of her little game, whatever she was playing at.

  I glared at Lucy. “May we have a word? In private?”

  She grinned toothily and I dragged her by the arm out of earshot of the campfire while the dwarf and pixie watched amusedly.

  “What are you trying to pull?”

  “Why, Theo, I don’t understand—”

  I glanced back at the pixie Clio waving seductively at my familiars. Then I got up in Lucy’s face. “Let me be as blunt as possible. You replaced me as your partner with a pixie whose name rhymes with mine?”

  “No,” she said matter-of-factly. “I replaced you with a pixie and a dwarf. Like I said, you’re a solid package. Hard to replace—”

  I shoved a finger at her. “You know what I mean.”

  “My, my, Theo. And you think I’m the delicate one?”

  “This isn’t about my pride,” I said, but part of it was. “You know what happened the last time Simon and Garfunkel came across a pixie—”

  “I know. I know. All that fluid … Wouldn’t want that to happen again.” Lucy threw up her hands. All four of them. “But pixies come in so handy. Experts at magic. Able to fit through tight places. Cooking skills.” She’d been ticking off the pros on her fingers as she spoke. Now she gave me a sideways glance as she ticked off a fourth finger. “I repeat, cooking skills. Don’t think I’ve forgotten your attempt at risotto after the Forbidden Palace heist.”

  “Hey,” I said. “We agreed to never speak of the risotto incident again.”

  “Yeah that was pretty bad,” Simon said distractedly and I shushed him.

  Garfunkel managed to pry his eyes off Clio, no small feat as she was now running a tiny hand up her slender thigh, and looked up at me. “Wait. That was supposed to be risotto? I thought it was—”

  “Hush. Both of you.” I gritted my teeth and turned back to Lucy. “I know you. This is some part of your end game. Why else would you team up with a pixie?”

  “And a dwarf,” she reminded me. “Besides, you don’t have a monopoly on befriending tiny mythological creatures.”

  “This isn’t about—”

  “Insensitive human,” Lucy said.

  “Hey now—” I started to say but a rustling in the bushes prompted me to raise a hand for quiet.

  Lucy laughed. “What? You afraid of the devil?”

  “Devil?” I asked with wide eyes. “Watch out for forest devils,” my father’s voice said from the days of my childhood when we used to go camping. “They like to gobble up little kids that misbehave …”

  Lucy stood with two of her hands on her hips, her other two thrown up into the air. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Jersey Devil …”

  I laughed. “Oh, right. Sorry, I’m ah, just worried about the Brotherhood of Zeus sneaking up on us.” I held up my arm, feeling as I did that someone—or some Other—was watching us.

  “They are rather sneaky,” Lucy admitted. “Clio, time to work your magic.”

  I sat on my heels with my legs folded under me, resting on the balls of my feet in case something
leapt out at us from the trees and I needed to spring into action. I wasn’t going to be gobbled up like Lucy and her friends …

  I shook my head. My father’s damn campfire stories. If he only knew they still terrorized me to this day. Oh well, even after what I did to help Mother, I probably deserved it.

  “Hold still,” Clio said as I rested my forearm against the top of the tree stump. She passed the silver coin over my arm for the umpteenth time.

  I glanced over at Lucy. “How far away is the mine from here?”

  “Just another mile or so.”

  “Paranoid much?” I asked.

  Lucy just looked at me. “You’re the one with the tracking sigil on your arm.”

  “Good point.” I turned my attention back to the pixie about to pass the coin over my arm again when a particularly loud howl echoed through the woods.

  Daryl must have seen me stiffen because he fingered his ornate belt buckle as he regarded me. “Scared of the dark, are ya?”

  “No,” I said, probably a bit too quickly.

  “Nothin’ ter be ashamed of, lass. You live above ground. It’s probably jest the Jersey Devil. The mine is in his territory.”

  “This might hurt,” Clio said, rubbing the silver coin between her tiny palms.

  I turned back to Daryl. “You’ve seen it? The Jersey Devil?”

  “Nah. I got some cousins live out in these areas. Say the devil mainly keeps to himself. Not big on socializin’, if ya know what I mean.”

  “Gonna gobble you up,” my father’s voice whispered in my ear, and I jumped.

  I scratched behind my ear with my free hand to mask my anxiety. “Didn’t realize there were so many dwarves living in New Jersey,” I said.

  Daryl threw up his arms. “Oh don’t get me started. All the good dirt is in New York, but do you even know how expensive decent underground real estate is there? I mean, a dwarf practically has to lop off an arm and a leg just to afford a permit to dig …”

  I nodded as if I knew all about the process. Luckily I was spared the rest of Daryl’s rant.

  “Done,” Clio said, wiping her Barbie doll forehead. “I couldn’t sever the connection completely, but I did the next best thing—I scattered the broadcast. Someone tries to follow it, they’ll wind up somewhere in rural Pennsylvania.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the pixie. “I hardly felt a pinch. Are you sure you even did anything?”

  Clio glanced at me testily, and from the corner of my eyes I saw Simon and Garfunkel do the same, turning their bodies toward me like possessed Ken dolls.

  “She’s good for it,” Lucy said. “If Clio says the tattoo is fixed, it’s fixed.”

  I stood up and waved my hand in front of Simon. “What do you think?”

  An unearthly howl rent the stillness of the woods.

  “I think we need to leave!” Simon said.

  I clenched my teeth and scanned the woods around us. “You know how directionally challenged I am.”

  Lucy chuckled. “It’s true. Theo couldn’t find her way out of a barrel.”

  Clio and Daryl laughed.

  “Hey now,” I said. “Don’t forget I have special forces training and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  Lucy caught my eye and then started to pack up the camp. “Guys, let’s not give Theo a hard time.”

  I blinked. Lucy, showing compassion? It was almost too much to believe.

  “Because,” Lucy continued, “we need her to unlock the door to the mine.”

  I sighed. Now there was the Lucy I knew and didn’t love. Isn’t it comforting how most people never change?

  “Language and Other Barriers”

  The mine’s entrance resembled a hobbit hole except it was made of rock instead of a mound of grassy earth, a large flat stone serving as the door with a seal so perfect around the edges that it had to be magic. When we reached it, Daryl pulled aside a screen of foliage and Clio smacked the stone door with her palm. Almost instantly, nine dwarven runes glowed faintly to life, arrayed in a three-by-three grid on the smooth rock. Beside the entrance stood a few heaps of ash. Odd …

  There came a howl so loud and forceful I thought it had come from the woods just at our backs but a sideways sweep of my eyes showed only trees. I glanced upward through a gap in the branches but saw only the moon, fat and full above us like a spotlight.

  “Open the door!” Simon said.

  Garfunkel wrinkled his brow. “You do know, that’s the haunted mine?”

  “Run away!” Simon said.

  The howl sounded again, closer, and I felt a presence suddenly watching me as if through a gently peeled-back veil. I absentmindedly gripped at my jeans.

  “Open the door!” Simon said again.

  Noticing my anxiety, Daryl made a twirly gesture with his finger. “Just the Jersey Devil’s way of saying Hi. Now what say ya take a look at the door, lass?”

  Daryl was probably right. How long had he and Clio and Lucy been camping in these woods? If the devil meant them harm, it’d have done it already.

  “Gonna gobble you up …”

  I quickly scanned the entrance. I didn’t recognize the dwarvish runes, but I guessed that’s what Daryl was for … So why hadn’t he already opened it? The intense frown on his scrunched-up face suggested he was baffled.

  Lucy, standing calmly beside us, slipped a pair of throwing stars into her hands as she watched our backs. “Come on, Theo, work your magic,” she said. “I’ll watch our backs so you can rest easy.”

  I swallowed. I did feel better with Lucy on watch. Turning back to the door, I said, “Uh … mellon?” hoping against hope that it might open.

  No such luck. There was another howl, and I shivered.

  “We’re gonna die!” Simon screamed.

  It was then that my eyes caught the etched inscription arcing above the door, on the stony rim, but it wasn’t in English. It was in … Greek.

  “What’s it say?” Garfunkel asked, rubbing his fingers together? “ ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here?’ ”

  “No,” I said. “It’s instructions on which runes to touch to open the door. Press the wrong ones and you’re reduced to …” I glanced at the ash piles by the door.

  “We know,” the dwarf said testily. “A common enough precaution for dwarvish treasure troves. Lucy said you’d be able to read the writing.”

  Did she also say she was going to stab me in the back the moment the door opened? I didn’t ask.

  A bush quivered and a squirrel hopped out. Luckily for it, Lucy hadn’t sliced it in two with a throwing star.

  “I’m going to have a heart attack!” Simon wailed.

  I faced the door and touched the runes in the order specified by the instructions. For a moment, nothing happened, and I feared I’d mis-translated. But I wasn’t turned to ash and then the smooth stone sank with an earthy, grating sound, revealing a black maw of glistening downward-sloping stone.

  No sooner had the door descended, it immediately began to ascend. Daryl grabbed Lucy and me and pulled us in after him. A moment later the entrance sealed shut behind us, smothering us in total darkness.

  Simon whimpered and I thought I heard Clio gasp from under Lucy’s jacket. There was the sound of a zipper being pulled and then a ruffling and then a flashlight beam cut through the darkness. Lucy, holding the light downward, dug into her duffel bag and handed Daryl and me flashlights as well.

  “Shall we?” she asked with a glimmer in her eyes.

  My heartbeat quickened. The hunt for the artifact had begun.

  We started down the tunnel.

  Lucy and I took the lead and we walked in relative silence, the plopping of water droplets and our careful footfalls the only sounds. The air felt cool but not cold, and the temperature seemed to stay the same the farther down we traveled. The tunnel seemed fairly well built—old—but not dwarven old. We passed some abandoned mine carts tipped over on their sides and a couple of dirty miner helmets. There were also lots of branching tunnels but Cli
o guided us as if following some magical track only she could see. Nothing out of the ordinary, here. All in all, it seemed like a plain old mine.

  Until we came to the “Teeth.”

  They weren’t really teeth but stalagmites and stalactites that had met in the middle in a crisscrossing protrusion of rock that resembled the fangs or incisors of some terrible beast of lore.

  Clio dashed through an opening in the Teeth and waved us on from the other side while my familiars made pawing gestures at her from atop my shoulders.

  The rock formation was more than a little unnerving—and completely blocked the way forward for us people-sized beings—and I had the uneasy feeling that if we were to break one of the “fangs” to get past, something terrible would happen …

  Lucy stepped forward and power-kicked the rock fang on the far-left side. It broke off rather cleanly, its shaft skidding along the slick stone floor and into the sloping darkness out of range of our flashlights.

  She turned to look back at me. “You coming?”

  I worked my way up to the bizarre rock formation and edged past, much to my and Simon’s trepidations.

  The rock felt slipperier than it should have, and we continued downward. The walls here were smoother, the ceilings shored up with far superior skill than what had come before the Teeth. Also, dwarven runes and inscriptions decorated the wall at regular intervals.

  I turned to look at Daryl every now and then, grinning like a child in a candy store. “What does all the writing say?” I asked once.

  He shrugged. “Mostly just dwarven curses and inside jokes. We dwarves are funnier than we’re given credit for.”

  I nodded blankly and we kept making our way down.

  Until we came to the skeletons.

  “Dem Bones”

  The sloping ground had just leveled off when all of our flashlights went out simultaneously.

  Never a good sign.

  Simon shrieked and the flashlights came back on, and then they were just standing there in front of us like three stout gatekeepers: a Theo-sized skeleton, a four-armed Lucy-sized skeleton and a wide, dwarf-sized skeleton.