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

by Matthew Herrmann

  A smile creased her face. “Ah, Libra.”

  “You can see them?” I said.

  She took another step, shook her head. “I can feel them. I am their Night Mother, after all. Master of the Constellations, Ruler of the Dark Heavens.” Glancing at the stone ceiling and with a wistful sigh, she said, “The night sky just isn’t the same without constellations. It’s, sad.”

  I set my feet on the floor. “I think it’s good they get a second chance to live again, instead of being confined to the sky like a cage.”

  She hissed. “A cage? A cage? You think I treated my constellations like prisoners?”

  “You said yourself that they called you a ‘bitch’ …” Me and my big mouth!

  I waited for Nyx to strike me dead or whatever but she just stood and watched me. Behind her, Typhon sputtered.

  She whipped around and bent down beside him, the sundial pendant peeking out from under her blouse and dangling from her neck over Typhon’s nose like a pendulum.

  Great. Typhon just had to have given it to her. I clenched my fists. How was I supposed to get it from Nyx—a full-blown, GoneGodDamned goddess!

  Typhon took one last breath that rattled in his lungs, and then Nyx bent over and plopped two gold coins over his eyes.

  Piercing me with her eyes, Nyx said, “Congratulations, Theo. How does it feel to have slain a demigod?”

  Almost immediately, the amphitheater shook with tremors so violent that dust and chips of stone sloughed from the ceiling. The ground beneath Typhon’s body began to crack and groan, spiderwebbing out in all directions like tendrils of lightning. It felt like the earth was gnashing its teeth.

  Suddenly snakelike cracks gripped the chamber walls around the amphitheater’s round rim, and a prolonged, anguished moaning escaped the cracks, rushed down and toward Typhon’s body like a surf, whistling beneath stone benches and howling as it leapt toward the epicenter.

  An awful howling rushed past and around me, swirling around Typhon. An invisible presence lifted his body like a magician’s trick, hacked once at his throat and deposited him in a heap upon his chest, the two gold coins rolling away and disappearing down cracks in the floor.

  An awful stillness sank over the amphitheater.

  Nyx cackled, reciting, “And the dead shall rejoice. And rejoice, they did.”

  I felt lightheaded.

  Nyx stared down at Typhon’s body. “Rest easy,” she scoffed. “Oh, wait. You can’t because there’s no longer an Afterlife.” She laughed and turned to me. I edged back a step.

  “Now,” she said. “What am I going to do about you? Let you live? Send you to meet your mother—well, you know what I mean.”

  I crept backward, felt the wall at my back.

  “Guys,” I whispered, “wake up.”

  Nyx snapped her fingers and Simon and Garfunkel’s eyes snapped open. “That better? Want me to call them to me?”

  I didn’t like her sharp smile. I liked it even worse when she started to whisper a sweet lullaby. Simon and Garfunkel stirred, their tiny frames flashing with light. When they realized who was calling them, they shuddered.

  “Theo, don’t make us go back to her,” Simon pleaded.

  “Yeah,” Garfunkel said. “Hold us tight …”

  I did hold them tight; I held something else tight—the lava axe. I raised it as threateningly as I could. “Leave them alone.”

  Her laugh chilled me in a way that not even Typhon’s carnage could achieve. “But they belong to me. I am their mother. You are a bad influence.” She started to sing again, a lullaby as sickly sweet as it was sharp. It was a tune so slick it could slice your eardrum.

  I angled the lava axe in her direction again. “Stop! You saw what it did to Typhon.”

  Nyx paused and allowed her eyes to wander to Typhon’s corpse. “A paltry demigod? I’m a goddess. You thought he had a lot of time to burn?” She opened her mouth and utter darkness poured out of it like a mini vortex. “A goddess has so much more!” she said in a demonic roar.

  Within moments, darkness saturated the room, and I could no longer discern where Nyx stood. I edged to the side of the stone platform Atlas sat upon.

  “Where is she?” I asked my shoulders.

  “I can’t see her!” Simon shouted.

  “On your left!” Garfunkel said.

  I dodged to the right as a silver scythe or scythe-like claws raked the stone where my neck had been.

  “Oh Theo,” Nxy called out. “Don’t you just want to sleep? To lay down your weary head and be done with the troubles of this world? All the recurring monthly payments. The unresolved conflict with your dad. And let’s be honest, you’ve never really felt like you’ve belonged in this world, have you?”

  “Behind you!” Garfunkel shouted and I spun, raising the lava axe sideways over my head, catching the scythe-claw along its shaft.

  I kicked out in front of me, but my foot passed through what felt like a rich, ripply curtain. The next thing I knew, I found myself pressed backward against Nyx’s cold supple body, a razor blade to my throat.

  “You’re outmatched,” she said pleasantly enough.

  “I’ve got a god-slayer,” I said, and slid the lava axe against her arm.

  She pulled back from me with a shriek, like a napkin yanked off a plate, staring at a glowing red nick on her arm. As she focused on it, the wound sealed itself shut. As though with the shifting of her magic, the veil of darkness fell, taking with it the rain.

  She sheathed her claws or scythes or whatever soberly behind her back, slinking backward like a marionette. “This is not your fight, human. You do not know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  Tearing my gaze from the pendant, I glanced at my shoulder pads and said, “I’m just looking after my family.”

  Nyx smiled sadly. “As am I.” She lazily traced a fingernail in the air between us. “Ah Libra. One of my favorite, and most important constellations. Probably the constellation most disturbed by her return to this cruel, unbalanced world. No wonder she disguised her presence. I’ll spare you—for now—for the care you’ve given her.” She lifted her head from me like a supermodel on a runway calling to her assistant. “Gan?”

  Gan rushed forth up to her side. “Mistress, are you ready for your Ascension?”

  Mistress? Ascension? And then it clicked.

  I jabbed a finger at Gan. “You rat bastard, you were never on the Brotherhood of Zeus’s side or Typhon’s side. You were on her side.”

  Gan glanced at me impassively. “Fooled them both, did I not?”

  I stepped up in Gan’s face and gestured at Nyx and then up at Atlas’s Heart. “You’re OK with that woman—”

  “Goddess,” Nyx corrected.

  “—goddess having that much power? You saw what it did to Typhon. It probably would’ve done the same to whichever Brotherhood of Zeus acolyte got his hands on it. Look what its desire did to Don.”

  This must’ve been Simon’s first glance at what remained of Don’s body after Typhon had chomped down on it because he barfed all over my shoulder. Again.

  Gan shook his head impassively. “I will not justify my actions to you.”

  I growled. “What has she promised you? Your family?”

  “Let’s go,” Nyx said, placing a hand on Gan’s shoulder. To me she said, “Stay out of this.”

  “You know what I don’t get?” I said. “All these years you stood by Typhon’s side and watched as he forced your constellations—your family—to fight to the death over and over again in his Arena. I wonder if they’d approve of their ‘mother’s’ actions.”

  Nyx’s eyes darted to the amphitheater’s rim and that’s when I noticed all the Arena-bound Others staring down at us, watching as though our conversation was part of some sort of midnight tableau.

  Nyx gritted her teeth. “I could wipe you and all of them out in a single breath … But I choose to be a merciful god. For now.” She turned to Gan and he grasped her dusky hand.

  And
with a final flickering glance at me, she enshrouded both herself and Gan in a shawl of darkness and propelled herself upward toward the Heart, majestic and cruel, scythes trailing behind her like curved wings.

  She dove into the Titan’s open chest cavity, and sprang back out like a raven clutching its prey, and with an ethereal, warlike cry, she drove herself into the wall of the amphitheater’s stone chamber, boring through it as if it were Swiss cheese, arcing up and disappearing through her newly made tunnel to the surface.

  On my shoulders, my familiars shivered.

  I shivered and let the lava axe fall to the ground. The handle was already cold, but a glance at my hands revealed blistered palms from its use. A wave of lightheadedness overtook me and I collapsed.

  “What A Girl Wants”

  When I came to, Garfunkel was asking, “Is she dead again?”

  I rubbed at my head. Had I just been hit by a bus? Also, how long had I been out?

  “You’re alive!” Simon said.

  I groaned. “What happened?”

  “The energy in the lava axe,” Simon said. “It must have overwhelmed your system. We, uh, burned some time to make you feel better.”

  I sat up on the amphitheater’s stone floor and held my head. “Burned some time?” I felt like giving them the speech, but held my tongue. “Was it really that bad?”

  “Eh, it was touch and go for a few moments,” Garfunkel said.

  Simon wiped away a tear. “That weapon was forged for a demigod. It wasn’t designed for a human to wield.”

  I smirked. “Well, if there was ever any doubt to my badassery …”

  I shut up as two sets of tiny hands clutched my neck in an embrace.

  “Please don’t die again, Theo!” Simon said. “It’s so stressful!”

  Still sitting on the ground, I wiped the corners of my eyes. My vision was oddly blurry—I guess a side effect from the axe’s power—but at least my brains and eyeballs and insides weren’t melting from the inside. Whoever had made that axe ought to have put a warning sticker on it.

  Speaking of which, I didn’t see the axe. What had happened to—

  “AHEM.”

  Startled, I scrabbled around on my hands and butt and shoes. The Minotaur’s shadow fell over me. “Um … hi?” I said as I tried to stand but I lost my footing and fell backward into the arms of two goblin children.

  “Oh, thanks,” I said as they braced me back to my feet and I waited for my pudding legs to support my weight. The goblin children curtseyed with their arms across their bellies.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “That’s not necessary.” But they’d already trotted off, melting into a handful of Others gathered among the tiered stands. I blinked.

  When my vision started to clear I saw there wasn’t just a handful of Others here. Bunched up shoulder to shoulder and sitting or standing on every bench and open spot along the steps encircling the amphitheater, Others of all shapes and sizes peered at me, wiping tears from their eyes. Some were dirty and wearing tattered clothes of static-y sheep’s wool. Others bore the marks of manacles and collars.

  “Uh guys, where did they all come from?”

  In unison, most of the creatures with appendages rose and pressed an arm over their abdomen as they bowed to me. The more amorphous Others—the wisps and slyphs and bogles—dipped their essences reverently. Every creature bore some reminder of their time in either Typhon’s captivity or living underground: bruises, scars, chains, shackles, pale skin, patchy fur, weak blinking lights. Their hollowed-out eyes sparked with renewed hope—and they were all on me! I even spotted Jack-O’-Lantern’s triangular eyes glowing warmly down at me from the stands.

  “Guys?” I whispered. “What is going on?”

  Simon nibbled at his fingernails. “It appears that all these Others are …”

  “Worshipping you,” Garfunkel finished.

  “Worshipping?”

  A heavy hoof scratched at the stone floor and I spun around as the Minotaur went down on one knee, bowing his bull’s head before standing back up, his arm held reverently across his side.

  “Minotaur,” I began to say, but he cut me off, his voice projecting to the outermost reaches of the amphitheater.

  “WE GATHER TO EXPRESS OUR GRATITUDE TO THE HUMAN, THEO, FOR WE OWE HER OUR FREE-DOM!”

  A dead stillness fell on all the Others present above and around me. Not one mythical creature breathed or blinked or barked.

  And then a moment later, “COMMENCE THE ACCOLADES.”

  Bellows and caws, hoots and hollers, trumpets and the beatings of chests rained down on me in a cacophony of sounds blending into something akin to music. Not because of the tonality—GoneGods no!—but because of the heart and the effort expressed by each grunt, each holler, each yowl.

  It seemed to go on for ages until I feared I might start losing my hearing. But mostly, I just didn’t know what to do. Bow? Wave? Smile? It’d be an understatement to say that I wasn’t used to being in the limelight. And standing at the center of an acoustically perfected amphitheater, that’s exactly where I was. The only thing missing was the spotlight. (Although I did have one—on my wrist.)

  I glanced at my familiars, expecting to see Simon covering his ears and proclaiming about the importance of proper hearing protection and Garfunkel basking in the fanfare, but they were doing neither. They both stood quietly on their respective shoulder pad, tears in their eyes, smiling from cheek to cheek at me.

  The applause eventually died down to the point where I could hear myself think but not talk. A minute or two later, when the noise level had fallen a bit more, I waved to get the Minotaur’s attention. The Minotaur cleared his throat and cupped his hooves over his mouth.

  “HUSH. The PARAGON wishes to SPEAK.”

  Every single Other instantly ceased their clapping and cheering.

  I stared the Minotaur down like a gunslinger at high noon. “Paragon? Speak? Hey now, I—” I strangled off my words as I realized that—as softly as I’d spoken them—each and every word had been broadcasted to the Others packed and gathered in the stands. And from their leaning-forward postures, I could tell they were hanging on every word.

  I started over. “Sorry, I … I’m no paragon.” If anything, I was a thief.

  “We love you, Theo!” an Other shouted from somewhere in the stands.

  “Thank you!” an orc called out.

  From a pocket of trolls, mistimed applause sounded. A cluster of war-angels beat their wings.

  Wow. These Others thought I was Spartacus.

  But I wasn’t.

  The Minotaur turned to me. “But you ARE a PARAGON. You did what I could NOT. You stood up to a TYRANT.” The Minotaur lowered his head in shame.

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said.

  The Minotaur reached behind his back and held out the lava axe. “THIS says OTHERWISE.”

  I just stood there, stupidly. “What do I do?” I whispered to my familiars.

  Simon leaned into my right ear. “I think they want you to accept the axe.”

  “Yeah, grab the axe, you big dummy!” Garfunkel said.

  “But what about the energy or curse or whatever? It nearly killed me a few minutes ago.”

  “That was because you killed a demigod with it.” Simon said. “It should be safe to hold now.”

  Should be …

  I reached out and as soon as my palm touched the axe’s handle, the Others erupted into applause and clapping and cheers.

  “We are in your DEBT,” the Minotaur said. He and all the Others did the equivalent of bowing. “What is it you WISH of US?”

  “Wish of me?” I repeated?

  “They are indebted to you,” Simon whispered.

  “Indebted …”

  “Yes,” Garfunkel said exasperatedly. “They will do your bidding. Clean your apartment. Patch a flat tire. Fix you a sandwich.”

  “What?” I whispered. “I’m not going to do that.”

  The Minotaur, still bowed
forward, cleared his throat. “Your COMMAND?”

  I bit my lip as I sent my eyes out over the crowd. Cyclops, imps, cockatrices, harpies. Others I’d never seen before, had no idea of their names. And there, at the top, Leo, staring down at me, his regal mane and soiled with dust and blood, his snout bearing the claw mark of Typhon.

  “What’s the lion’s deal?” I whispered to Simon. “I haven’t heard him roar allegiance to me—not that I want him to. And is it just me or does he look like he wants to eat me …?”

  Simon pulled at his chin. “He is prideful. And he will bow to you—probably—if you have a command for him. But …”

  “He’ll resent me for it?” I finished.

  Garfunkel slapped at his shoulder pad. “Eh, he’ll get over it. He’s a lion. Lion’s are prideful. Could be a handy ally.”

  I swallowed. I wasn’t a leader. I wasn’t a hero. And I didn’t want a personal army of Otherly minions. (I already had two familiars and they were enough.)

  A few feet away from me, the Minotaur’s back creaked as he maintained his bow.

  “Command them to do the macarena,” Garfunkel said. “That would be cool.”

  I cleared my throat. “I want … I want you all to be free.”

  My voice sounded surprisingly strong. It didn’t sound like mine.

  Another period of silence followed, and for a moment I wondered if I’d said something wrong. Then a kangaroo-like Other sitting up on one of the lower tiers of seating wagged its tongue. Several chick-like boobries flapped their wings unsteadily from the shoulders of a behemoth which turned up its snout and howled. A barrel-chested skunk ape rubbed his palms together hesitantly, glancing at the rest of the Others amassed there.

  And then a great roar split the air over the amphitheater, sending a fissure down the remains of Atlas’s petrified body. Good ol’ Leo and that earth-rending roar of his …

  That seemed to break the tension and cheering broke out in earnest yet again.

  “Uh, how long is this going to go on for?” I shouted to Simon, who shrugged.

  “Others take their celebrating seriously. A wedding celebration in Atlantis once lasted years …”