“Same here, Captain!” I exclaimed. But he couldn’t hear me.
Volk said bitterly, “If she is not the Swerver then you gave your life for nothing.”
“V,” Cyrus said, “if this is the case, then you are probably pretty pissed off at me, eh? Just imagine how stupid I must feel!”
Volk chuckled, and I saw his eyes well up. He missed his buddy, and I felt sad for him. I missed Captain Cyrus like a student misses his beloved teacher, but Captain Volk missed him as his one and only friend.
“However,” Cyrus continued, “wrong though I may be about Ellen Veetal being the Swerver of the generation, I’m certain that her being matched with Professor Matterson stinks to high heaven. Something is up down here, and since I’ve already cashed in my chips, I’m not going to stop until I figure it out. Also, some dumb-ass cupids must have come down here to finish off this Veetal match.”
“That would be us, Captain Volk.” I said.
“And since only another human can break up a match made by a cupid,” Cyrus went on, “that’s what I have sought to do. However, it won’t be long before someone back at the Academy notices and Sett sends down another cupid to restart the match. If they learn that it was me who sabotaged the affair, they will try to take me out.”
“Can we do that?” I said, shocked. “I thought a cupid angel is unable to materially interact with a human.”
“Tell him, V,” Cyrus said, having correctly judged my reaction. “I’ll wait.”
“There are different ways it could be done,” Volk explained. “A cupid could rile up the person’s existing yetzers, driving him or her over the cliff, as it were. He could shoot the person with an overdose of any number of different potions: lust and libido elixirs, for example. But the surest way is to arrange an accident. Remember how I sent that chandelier crashing down at the wedding with the lightning whip? Had someone been standing underneath it, it could have been lights out for him. Get it?”
“But that’s murder, and we’re angels! We can’t do that.”
“Have you forgotten Sodom and Gomorrah?” Volk said. “The angel of death in Egypt, and many others?”
“Yes, but they were a different breed of angels,” I said. “They were carrying out judgment from the Most High.”
“True, but for us, judgment is now in the hands of the Academy, in the hands of cupids like Judge Minos. If he were to put out a death warrant on Captain Cyrus, there are plenty of cupids who would volunteer to execute it.”
“Is there anything Captain Cyrus can do to protect himself?” I asked, concerned.
“Extreme vigilance,” Volk said.
“How about a bodyguard? Virgil and I could take turns watching over him.”
Cyrus said, “I appreciate your concern, Kohai, but if the Academy caught you acting as my guardian angel, you would risk the same fate I suffered.”
“How does he do that?” I remarked aloud. “Am I that predictable?”
Cyrus smiled and said, “Not you, Kohai, but your loyalty and sense of righteousness. Take it as a compliment. Anyway, don’t worry about me. I won’t be hanging around Ms. Veetal for a while. It will take the Academy some time to trace the match’s failure to me. Likewise, you both had better keep your distance from Ellen Veetal. If either of you were spotted snooping around her, it would look very suspicious.
“Now,” Cyrus continued, “if you’re out there and you can hear me, I want you to meet me a month from today at seven p.m. sharp at Officer Sam Jeffreys’ home. I’ll be in the guesthouse in the back. In the meantime, we all have a lot to do. And perhaps by then one of us will have figured out a way to communicate. Over and out.”
We had reached the perimeter of the campus. Captain Volk and I stopped and watched Cyrus shrink out of view and merge with a throng of pedestrians.
“That was weird,” I said. “It was almost like old times, wasn’t it, Captain Volk?”
“Almost,” he said absently, squinting into the distance.
I tried to follow his gaze, but saw nothing. “What is it, Captain?”
“Keep walking,” he commanded. “Don’t look around. Just act normal.”
“Normal?”
“Attaboy, just like that.”
“Do you want to tell me where we’re going or what we’re looking for?”
“You got any weapons on you besides your short sword?” he asked.
“Some shurikens, two crystal demon daggers, a bola, and a lightning whip. You?”
“About the same.”
Without looking conspicuous, I tried to ferret out what had caught Captain Volk’s eye. I didn’t see anything suspicious. We continued along the sidewalk, passing a long row of university shops, boutiques, and eateries.
Volk said, “Turn here and go into invisible mode.”
“Yes, Sir.”
We rounded a corner and then disappeared into an alley that ran parallel to the university’s main drag. The alley was used for deliveries and trash pick-ups. It stank of garbage and cat urine, and there were puddles of greasy water leftover from the previous night’s rain. Captain Volk motioned to me to split up, he to the left and me to the right. We continued down the alley.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Volk said switching to thought mode.
“For what?”
“Anything strange.”
We walked another twenty yards when Captain Volk shouted, “Take cover!”
We ducked behind industrial-sized, green trash receptacles at opposite sides of the alley.
“What is it, Captain?”
“A bad feeling.”
I peered left and right down the alley. I didn’t see anything. I looked skyward. “Um, Captain Volk?”
“What is it, Kohai?”
“The ‘anything strange’ you mentioned, would that include a man soaring through the air on the back of a Vengeance Yetzer?”
“It would.”
“Three o’clock.”
Swooping down from the sky came a fifteen-foot long Vengeance Yetzer. It looked like a cross between a vampire bat and a vulture, but was the size of a giant pterodactyl. Vengeance Yetzers, as the name implies, cause humans to obsess about getting even.12
Note 12: A person possessed by a Vengeance Yetzer lives in a fantasy world of virtual schadenfreude and payback. Believing others have unjustifiably slighted him or her, the person dreams up scenario after scenario where he or she gets to witness his foe’s downfall and humiliation. As is often the case, the perceived sleight is so trivial that the person who performed it isn’t even aware he or she did anything wrong or harmful, which only fuels the Vengeance Yetzer-possessed person’s resentment all the more.
A screeching Vengeance Yetzer with claws extended zooming down towards you was scary enough, but one doing so disembodied from a human host was unheard of. Yetzers rarely strayed more than eyesight distance from its host. And something I certainly never heard of was a cupid riding on one!
“Captain, have you ever seen such a thing before?”
“No. Nor that coming behind us.” He paused. “Crap. Or in front of us.”
I took a panicked look and spotted closing in from behind, two more yetzer-riding men, these on the backs of big, lumbering, shaggy Grudge Yetzers. The Grudge Yetzers’ long, slimy proboscises swung searchingly through the air, sniffing for cupids.
In front of us charged a Victim Yetzer. The hideous toad-like creature rushed towards us in galloping hops. Its pointy teeth bared as it let loose a barrage of unintelligible yetzer invective. Bestriding the yetzer’s back was a man in a red uniform—demon duster at the ready and a plasma rifle holstered to his saddle.
Above, its wings thumping the air, hovered the terrible Vengeance Yetzer and its rider.
I maneuvered for another look and saw that our situation had further deteriorated. Armed soldiers in red had sealed both ends of the alley with stun nets and joined in the hunt. The only way out was up, but the Vengeance Yetzer and its rider were right on top of us. We were trapped.
“Captain, who are these guys? They look like us!”
“They were, once.”
“You mean…”
“Soldiers of Anteros.”
“Can they see us as long as we’re in invisible mode?”
“No, but the Grudge Yetzer can smell us. They know we’re here somewhere.”
Invisible mode had two disadvantages. Because it required concentration, you couldn’t fight in it and you couldn’t whirl. To spin out of the situation we’d have to uncloak first, ensuring we’d be discovered, and so be blasted to goop on the spot. If we remained invisible much longer, the Grudge Yetzers would sniff us out and the Anteros soldiers would open fire on us, spraying the area with splicer bullets. If hit, we’d lose our cloaking, and then they’d finish us off.
The Victim Yetzer skid to a halt in the middle of the alley.
“Dogs of Eros!” the rider called out. “Show yourselves and live!”
“Captain Volk…?” I said nervously.
“Steady, Kohai.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“Pray.”
49
Backdoor Deal
The Anteros soldier, gun arm extended, scanned the alley for a sign of our location. “I know you are here,” he bellowed. “Show yourselves or die!”
The Grudge Yetzers snuffling their way towards us closed in. Captain Volk and I had only seconds before they’d sniff us out.
The back door to one of the restaurants swung open, and a young man with a stuffed trash bag in each hand exited the building. He was oblivious to the eight-foot Victim Yetzer in front of him, or the screeching Vengeance Yetzer above flapping its bat-like wings.
“The door!” Volk shouted in thought mode.
We dashed for the opening.
“Dive, Kohai! I’m right behind you!”
“Oh, no you don’t!” the soldier on the Victim Yetzer shouted, anticipating our plan.
He wheeled his yetzer around and opened fire at the door.
Demon duster bullets zipped over my head, just missing me. Had I run in instead of dived I’d have been a goner. I skimmed across the kitchen floor of the restaurant and rolled off to the left. Captain Volk rolled right. More bullets whizzed through the air.
The young man returned from his trash haul and slammed the door shut, but not before three Anteros commandos with splicer submachine guns had rushed in ahead of him.
Back in cloaking mode, Volk and I crawled into the restaurant’s dining room. The hamburger joint was full of students enjoying the happy hour’s half-priced beer.
“Kohai, stay clear of the door. They are expecting us to run out when it opens.”
Sure enough, the soldiers opened fire around the door, peppering it with splicer slugs and fizzing, electric blue photon blasts.
Volk leaped atop the wooden bar counter and crouched. I took cover squeezing in between the jukebox and a bulging coat stand.
Not wanting to chance drawing the ire of the students’ own yetzers by accidentally shooting one of them, the Anteros soldiers withdrew bayonet-sized demon daggers and began a search of the premises. Except for being dressed in red battle uniforms, they were indistinguishable from the toughest cupid commandos.
“Show yourselves, you cupid cowards!” shouted one of the soldiers; a blond, brawny fellow with a golden earring and a large tattoo of a bleeding heart on his forearm. He carefully maneuvered the perimeter of the restaurant, stabbing his bayonet into every nook and cranny. The others followed suit, zeroing in on me.
I withdrew one of my two crystal daggers and squatted. I saw a boot plant itself in front of me as the soldier it belonged to jabbed his bayonet into the space I had been filling just a moment before. I plunged my dagger into the foot, and immediately forfeited my cloaking.
The fighter shrieked.
I sprang upwards and smacked him under the chin with the palm of my hand, dropping him flat onto his back. I reached behind and unsheathed my kodachi short sword. The soldier went for his demon duster, but I cartwheeled through the air and left my sword impaled in his chest.
I turned and saw his comrade about to crush my skull with the butt of his rifle. Suddenly, the soldier dropped his weapon as his hands flew for Captain Volk’s bola that was wrapped around his throat. I snap kicked the soldier in the groin, grabbed him by the ears, and slammed his nose into my knee. He reached for a demon dagger strapped to his leg, but I had mine out first. I stabbed it into the base of his skull. He died and quickly pooled, joining his friend in goop land.
“Well, if it isn’t the legendary Captain Volk,” said the remaining Anteros soldier, the one with the tattoos and earring. He swaggered towards the captain, a twelve-inch demon dagger in his hand. Unfazed by the death of his two comrades, he said, “You don’t remember me, do you old man?”
“Should I?” Volk said, pivoting as the man circled him like a tiger, expertly shifting his knife from hand to hand.
“No, I suppose not. I was a young cadet when I last saw you. But I’m sure you remember my teacher, a great cupid, Commander Tychon. Ring a bell?”
“From the Civil War,” Volk said. “One of Anteros’s top commanders. I killed him. Leave now so I don’t have to do the same to you.”
The soldier laughed scoffingly. “Today I will avenge him, and I will make your corpse a burnt offering to my god, to Anteros, the one and only.”
“You are wrong on all three accounts, son,” Volk said. “You will avenge nobody and offer up nothing to your false god. Put away your weapon, retreat, repent, and live.”
The soldier lunged. Volk stepped into the thrust, trapped the soldier’s arm, twisted, and slammed the fighter face-first into the floor, forcing him to drop his weapon. Volk’s knee in the small of the soldier’s back, the man’s arm a painful inch from being torn from its socket, the Anteros warrior cried out in pain-filled curses.
“Who sent you?” Volk demanded.
“I answer only to Anteros!”
“Anteros is dead. Who sent you?”
“Anteros is eternal!”
Volk added another notch of pressure to the soldier’s arm, eliciting a howl. “Who gave you your orders? Tell me and I’ll let you live to fight another day.”
“Go to Hell!”
“Kohai,” Volk said calmly. “Look among these students and see if you can find us a cute little Mocking Demon to piss off. Since our friend here doesn’t want to talk to us, we’ll leave him in the company of his favorite yetzer.”
At the mention of the name, Mocking Demon, the soldier went white in fear.
A powerful yetzer with fanged teeth and muscles like bowling balls, a Mocking Yetzer resembled a cross between a massive Rottweiler and a gorilla with a bad case of mange.13
Note 13: A human possessed by a Mocking Yetzer confuses an acerbic and cynical sense of humor with genius and wisdom. Late-night television hosts and cable TV newscasters and their guests are favorite breeding grounds for the Mocking Yetzer. Smug, condescending, derisive, and snarky—the Mocking Yetzer’s host seeks to demolish the lives and reputations of their targets. It isn’t enough to chide its victims; the Mocking Yetzer-possessed person must eviscerate them. Wit, half-truths, and innuendo are his weapons of choice.
I strolled through the restaurant and passed my hand over the customers one by one, revealing the dozens of freakish yetzers hiding within them. At one table I came to a young man who was clearly the life of the party. Charming, wickedly wry and satirical; comical, mocking abuse flowed from his mouth like cheap champagne.
“Found one!” I said.
Volk grabbed the soldier by the scruff and directed his attention towards me. I passed my hand over the student’s head and held it there so that the soldier could get a good long look at the dozing Mocking Yetzer.
Volk said, “Want us to wake him and see if he wants to come out and play?”
The soldier trembled. “I-I don’t know who ordered the hit. I just follow orders.”
“Kohai
, we know how much Mr. Mocking Demon hates to be disturbed, but give him a little tickle, would you?”
“No!” the soldier cried, knowing well that once awoken the yetzer would have quite an appetite. “Hamanaeus,” he blurted. “The order came from Hamanaeus.”
“Why? What does he want?”
“To shut down Heaven.”
“And how does he propose to do that?”
The soldier hesitated.
“Kohai,” Volk said, “sprinkle a little demon bait in front of our mangy friend.”
I reached into a cargo pocket of my uniform and pulled out a black satin pouch. I waved it for the soldier to see.
“One whiff of this,” I said, “and he’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
“Stop! Okay, okay. By stopping the Swerver.”
“Ellen Veetal?”
“Yeah, her. She’s the one.”
“Go on,” Volk said.
The soldier narrowed his eyes and gathered up what was left of his dissipating pride. He began to parrot what had been preached to him.
“She’s the final Swerver,” he said. “The last chance. Stop this one and it’s lights out for the Academy. With the Swerver neutralized, the demons will chomp through the few remaining shreds of human decency. They will sweep across the globe in one immense, dark night of the soul. All pretenses to love extinguished, so too will be the excuse for your futile existence. The Academy will come begging to Hamanaeus to help them, abdicating all power to him. Anteros will return to Heaven in glory and start a new era where every cupid will prostrate before him and sing his praises.”
Volk said, “You don’t say? Why would the Academy believe for a moment that you could do a better job? And how do you plan to keep the fear demons from extinguishing you too?”
“The humans are doomed. Only Anteros can save them.”
“I got that part already, pal. Why?”
The soldier balked.
“Kohai…?”
I made a move to open the pouch.
“All right, all right,” the soldier said. “We made a deal with them.”
Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Book 1: Hell-bent (Shooting Eros Series) Page 31
