Urban Mythic: Thirteen Novels of Adventure and Romance, featuring Norse and Greek Gods, Demons and Djinn, Angels, Fairies, Vampires, and Werewolves in the Modern World

by C. Gockel

  I walked over to the door and jimmied the lock in my own special way as Candy argued with Craig regarding his safety choices. Wyatt watched them for a moment then followed me in.

  Robinson’s tiny box of a house had a small living room, an eat–in kitchen, and a ridiculously narrow hallway leading to two tiny bedrooms. I availed myself of the bathroom and was happy to snag a few naked girl magazines. Too bad there weren’t any guy ones, but I was thinking that maybe werewolves were strictly heterosexual. I wasn’t, so I’d be happy enough with the girly ones. I also saw some car magazines and a People. I grabbed them too thinking Candy might appreciate some reading material herself.

  I was bored and feeling nosy, so I looked through the guy’s bedroom. Lots of flannel, and belts with a variety of heavy, picturesque belt buckles. I’ll bet this guy had an axe in his garage. Whole lot of condoms in the underwear drawer with the tighty whities. I checked the expiration date on them. A few were pretty old. I opened one up for the heck of it and it was a bit dried out. Very careless of him. I wondered who Robinson was getting it on with? He was pretty restricted in his sexual partners with the existence contract. And with the state of those condoms, he’d not just be violating the sex part, but the breeding part also if he were fucking humans. I glanced again at the girly mags and wondered if jacking off to photos of human women would violate the contract. Stupid angels.

  The kitchen revealed that Robinson didn’t eat much. Or maybe he wasn’t home enough to bother with stocking up on groceries. There were some cans of tuna, white beans, and stewed tomatoes along with an almost empty bag of stale chips. Jackpot in the fridge though. It was full of beer. Coors Light, but hey I wasn’t going to be picky about stolen beer. It wasn’t really stealing anyway. I was going to save the guy’s ass, so he owed me some beer. I glanced out the window and saw Candy still arguing with Craig. She waved her finger at him, then walked out of view. I could imagine the conversation now: “Don’t you walk away from me, young man.”

  Wyatt popped open two beers, handed me one and took one back to the bathroom, snagging a magazine out of my hands. There are some things he evidently didn’t want to do out in an open field. I hopped up on the counter and sat there drinking my beer. I’d wait for Wyatt, grab a six–pack, or maybe a twelve–pack, and we’d head back to our comfortable spot behind the bushes.

  I’d finished my beer, started on a second and was beginning to wonder what the hell was taking Wyatt so long. I’m a get it done kinda girl. Maybe he was at a particularly engrossing part of the magazine and just needed to finish the article. Right. I hopped down from the counter and was about to head over when a boom shook the house practically knocking me off my feet. What the fuck? Did a truck just come through the living room wall or what? I ran to the front of the house, which was all of five steps, and saw a blur of light. The front door was split and sideways on its hinges, Candy lay in a bloody heap by the door. The light emanated from an angel, who had a limp Craig in the air as he shot some kind of energy through him. Craig looked a lot like a colander at that moment. I pulled up my raw energy and sent a blast at the angel. It would fry Craig too, but he was probably dead anyway.

  Craig dropped to the floor as the angel flew back from the blast, smashing through drywall and wall joists into the master bedroom. He narrowly missed Wyatt, who ran down the hall towards us.

  “Help Candy,” I shouted at him, more to get him safely out of the way than any real concern over the werewolf. I jumped through the considerable hole in the wall and flung another burst of energy at where I thought the angel might have landed. I was a few feet off and blew a hole in the floor as he scrambled for cover behind the bed. I went to dive across the bed at him and just missed having my head blown off by whatever the fuck it was he was throwing around. I rolled away just in time and smacked him with a pillow on the way. Take that, you bastard. He looked confused for a moment, which bought me enough time to roll safely off the bed and avoid another blast. The bedroom was full of holes by this time and drywall dust filled the air.

  Lying on the ground, I grabbed the metal frame of the bed and ran a good sized charge of electricity through it, hoping that if he was touching it, he’d at least be stunned. The mattress smoked, but as I scooted around the corner, the angel was alert and waiting. He threw more of the white stuff at me and I tried to duck out of the way. It hit my left hand and I was shocked to see that it blew my hand right off.

  “You fucking bastard! I just regenerated that hand!” I shouted at him as he dashed out the door and back to the living room.

  I hurtled after him heaving two more chunks of energy toward him from my right hand and my left stump. One hit, knocking him through the wall and into the kitchen. I saw him slam his back against the island counter, cracking a chunk of the plywood and linoleum off as he slid to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, diving around behind the island. What the fuck would kill this thing? He threw a few more wild blasts at me from behind the island, and out of desperation I blowtorched the whole lot. Maybe fire would do the trick.

  Nope. The bastard stood up and tried to make a run for the back door. I wasn’t having any of that, so I hit him again with a blast of raw energy and flung him into the fridge. By now, the middle part of the kitchen was on fire, there were holes blown through most of the house, and the fridge door was hanging off its hinges. None of the beer fell out, though. I took it as a positive omen.

  He threw more white stuff at me as he struggled to get up from the floor, but it was weaker and his concentration and aim seemed to be going. Maybe I was slowly wearing him down. I took a moment to regenerate my hand while easily ducking his blast. I hate having a stump where my fingers should be.

  I saw the angel dive down and guessed that he was going to make a break for the door again. I ran for it and beat him there, blocking the door with my body. That’s when he made his fatal mistake. He met my eyes square on. I locked him in place and held him there. It wasn’t easy. He still had a lot of power, and he knew his life depended on getting away. He squirmed like a bug pinned to a board, unable to break my gaze as I slowly moved across the burning kitchen toward him. Damn, he was strong, I thought as he kept pace with me, backward through the kitchen and into the living room, past Wyatt and a bloody but alert Candy. Finally, his back hit the front wall of the living room where he kicked and thrashed, his eyes wide with terror.

  “I’m not going to just kill you,” I told him calmly. “I’m going to Own you so I can keep you with me forever. I’ll peel the skin from you one strip at a time. I’ll reach up your ass and pull your insides slowly out, gnawing on them and ripping them with my claws. I’ll dislocate every joint in your body one at a time. I’ll take your bones and heat them, burning bits of you with your own flesh, and just when you think you’re dead, I’ll bring you back and do it all over again.”

  I was beyond excited. I had him. He was weakening and I was so strong. Mine. I’d be the only one of my kind to Own an angel. I reached him and began to send the mix of raw and personal energy into his body to force him to yield. Oh, this would be so sweet. The raw energy surged within me, and I reached out with the feathers of my personal energy to follow their blazed trail and take what I wanted. I felt him build one last bit of strength within himself to fend me off and smiled as I reached out to touch. . . the wall. He was gone. Gone. Where the fuck could he have gone? I had him. He was locked in place. No fucking way. Not again.

  I shrieked in rage and hit the wall with my fist. That wasn’t helping, so I turned around and grabbed the nearest thing, which happened to be Craig’s dead body. With a blast of energy, I ripped his arm off at the shoulder and began smashing it against the wall with all of my might.

  “Son of a bitch!” I screamed. “Damn mother–fucking cock–sucking son of a bitch!”

  I continued to scream curses and smash Craig’s arm against the wall with both hands, sending bits of flesh and blood flying around the room and smearing red all over the walls. I kept at it until the a
rm was a mush of pulp in my hands. Breathing heavy from the adrenaline and the exertion, I realized that I hadn’t heard a sound since I’d begun my tirade. I turned my head and saw Candy and Wyatt standing well away from me to the side, staring in horror at something behind me. Turning all the way, I saw a different angel, huge, dark and fearsome, framed by the burning kitchen behind him. I choked a bit and my heart felt like it hit the floor.

  Chapter 14

  The first angel had been tall and thin with blond curls and androgynous features in an oddly stone–like face. I’d not gotten a good look at Gregory from my brief glimpse in the Wine Bar. Not much beyond his height and dark red curls. I could see why the patrons had mistaken him for an actor. He was over six feet and built like a champion weightlifter. His crossed arms and chest looked ready to burst out of the navy polo shirt. His legs were snug in the acid washed jeans. I wondered what angel wore polo shirts and jeans? Where was the flowing white robe thingie?

  His tanned features were clearly masculine in the odd marble–textured face, almost harsh in their angles with a sharp nose and squared jaw. Dark chestnut curls fell around his ears and one dropped on his forehead. The whole effect would have been terribly sexy had it not been for his eyes. They were black. Black as midnight on a moonless night. They looked at me with a mixture of disgust and hatred. I was so scared that I had to consciously keep my energy at the surface ready for defense. I very much wanted to hide. Maybe if I stood really still, he wouldn’t see me. Wouldn’t see me here, all bloody, in a wrecked house, holding a mangled arm.

  “You cockroach,” the angel said, his voice oozing cold fury. He actually hissed a bit when he said it, like a snake. I seriously thought I was going to piss my pants. “I spend my time and energy establishing protection for this man, and you lure him over here and get him killed. What a waste.” He shook his head at Craig’s body, minus the one arm.

  “My carefully laid trap, completely ruined by your impulsiveness. How many more will die now? And you have the gall to think you can Own one of us? The arrogance to think you can Own an angel? You miserable, lowly cockroach. I’ll squash you like the vermin you are.”

  He pulled a sword seemingly out of nowhere. A long blade that glowed with a milky iridescence. He grasped it with two hands, and I noticed the guards curved up from the hilt were shining gold angel wings. Was this the sword he used to chop up my kind and reduce us to a pile of sand? Probably. I doubted it was for dicing tomatoes. Either way, I really didn’t want to find out what it felt like against my neck.

  In desperation, I dropped the pulpy arm and yanked every bit of raw energy I had to the surface hoping I’d at least cause him some pain before he took me out. Even if the sword sucked up most of the energy, maybe there would be enough to knock him sideways and give me a few minutes to try a desperate attempt at escape.

  As Gregory took a step toward me there was a deafening roar and the angel shook his head in astonishment. There was Wyatt, his huge grey pistol pointing at the angel. Wyatt, with a combination of fear and resolve on his face, had shot him. With his big grey pistol, he’d had shot an angel point blank in the head. I was torn between admiration at the balls it took to shoot an angel, and a surge of appreciation that Wyatt cared enough to go head to head with one to protect me.

  Sadly, a fifty caliber bullet doesn’t seem to do much to an angel. Gregory frowned, the sword disappeared, and he shot one hand out to grab Wyatt’s wrist and knock the gun to the ground. The other hand went to Wyatt’s throat.

  It was a perfect opportunity. Over the decades I had managed to store an immense amount of raw energy. I could have shot it in a stream at Gregory and possibly killed him in a massive blast. It would have killed Wyatt too, but that sort of thing never bothered me before. Demons are not sentimental, and as much as I liked Wyatt, my own personal well being should always come before anyone else’s. I shouldn’t have thought twice. It should have just been an automatic defensive action. Instead, I dropped the energy back within me and launched myself physically at Gregory. He clearly wasn’t expecting it. I knocked him to the ground away from Wyatt who slumped beside us clutching his throat. My stupidity continued as I straddled Gregory’s huge chest, grabbed his curls with my hands and whacked his head repeatedly on the ground.

  “Pick on someone your own size, asshole,” I shouted at him. “Leave him alone. He’s just a human, you fucking bully.” Brilliant. I was so dead.

  The angel looked at me with shocked surprise. Yep, I’ll bet he never had a crazed demon sit on him and bash his head on the floor before. He reached up, pinned my arms against the sides of my chest and easily tossed me across the floor like a bowling ball. I slid before coming to an abrupt stop against the wall decorated with Craig’s blood.

  Before I could get my head to function clearly, he had my arms pinned against my chest again and had lifted me up against the wall with my feet dangling, eye to eye with him. It wasn’t very dignified, and I really didn’t want to look in those dark eyes. I kept trying to pull my energy up, but he was doing something to me. It felt like my energy had a slippery silicon coating on it and I couldn’t grab it. I tried and tried, and it slipped away. He just held me there, silent and staring as I struggled, willing me to look at him. I kept my gaze determinedly fixed at his chin and kept trying to pull up some energy. Somehow I managed to grab a small handful and threw it at him. It was a tiny amount, the same that we use to discipline naughty children or disobedient servants, hardly likely to do more than piss him off further. It was the equivalent of smacking him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Bad doggie!

  He didn’t even budge. Just held me and stared at me until I finally stopped trying to grab my energy and reluctantly looked up at him under my eyelashes. We remained there, looking into each other’s eyes while I clenched my jaw to keep from shaking. I wished he’d say something. Something dramatic about what pain and torture he was going to inflict on me or what a horrible nasty cockroach of a being I was. Anything. Anything to distract me from wondering what I was seeing in those black eyes.

  “Are you afraid of me, cockroach?” he asked. His voice was deep and oddly seductive. I was far more afraid than turned on, though these two states weren’t mutually exclusive for a demon. He didn’t seem to want a response. I didn’t need to nod. He knew I was scared shitless.

  “You should be afraid. You may have been a match for a weakling like Althean, but you are no threat to me at all. You would do no more harm to me than an annoying fly buzzing around my head. I fought in the wars, I was present at the banishment of your kind, I’ve killed every demon who has faced me since the division of the realms. Far more powerful demons than you have fallen quickly and easily to my sword. Your death would be nothing to me. It would take me no effort at all to end your life, and reduce you to a pile of dirt.”

  He paused a moment and I could feel him exploring me with his power. It burned as it channeled through my flesh and probed my personal energy. I probably couldn’t have blocked him out, but I was surprised that I didn’t even try. I just let him poke me and turn me over like an interesting rock he was examining.

  “You are just an imp, a baby imp,” he commented, his tone filled with curiosity. His examination of me lost its rough edge and took on a note of wonderment. Nervously I guarded my stash of raw energy from him and tried to keep his probing closer to the surface. Pinning me against the wall with one hand, he released my shoulder with the other and put his fingers against my temple. I shook a little wondering if I was about to have angel wings imprinted on my forehead prior to my demise.

  “A baby. Simple, and unskilled. Lucky perhaps, but not so powerful after all.” He suddenly no longer had that hissing sound in his voice and I hoped that was a good thing. I didn’t think it was a good moment to argue that at nine hundred and thirty six human years I was well beyond the age of majority, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “I have more pressing matters to attend to than sending you to your grave at this moment, and I think y
ou might prove to be of some use to me,” he said.

  He gave that a few moments to sink in, then abruptly let go dropping me to the ground. I hadn’t expected it, and my legs weren’t exactly strong at that moment, so I crashed into a heap. The angel turned to the others. He looked at Wyatt in disgust.

  “Her stench, her mark covers you like a dog she owns.” He shook his head. “You have free will to do as you choose, but what poor choices you make. Stupid human.”

  He then walked to Candy who stood steady and calm, streaked with blood, her hands and face back to their human form. “You make deals with demons to solve your problems rather than ask other angels for assistance? You have truly lost your way.”

  She raised her eyebrows and I admired her fortitude. “When have you or your kind ever given us cause to trust you? We have seen none of you, only Althean. Didn’t you pay attention at all to what he was doing? Surely you saw his actions, yet you ignored us.”

  Gregory glared at her. “You should have come to me, or to another angel. Why would you suffer in silence like this? Why would you turn to a demon to help you? We are also bound to work within the terms of your contract, you should have brought this to someone’s attention.”

  “How do we know you don’t feel the same?” Candy asked. “We know many think we are Nephilim. How are we supposed to know who to trust? Any of you could feel the same way. Do you blame us for seeking help elsewhere? We rightly assumed that you sanctioned his actions.”

  I held my breath waiting for Gregory to whip out that sword and proceed to smackdown. Instead, he nodded slowly.

  “The Council hasn’t decided yet on whether you are Nephilim, and I will not act without their decision,” he said, avoiding giving his own personal opinion on the matter.

  “We will right this thing,” he went on to assure her. “There have been too many innocents killed, and although I deplore your actions, I can see they were made in desperation.”