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

  “How did you manage to survive Wyatt shooting you in the head? That would probably have killed me, but you hardly moved. You didn’t even bleed.” I was curious, and I really needed to get my mind out of the gutter.

  He gave me a disgusted look. “You are too imbedded in your physical form, almost like a human. If you hold yourself apart more, these things couldn’t affect you. Of course, I wouldn’t expect a demon to have the self discipline to do that sort of thing.”

  Jerk. “Ah, so that’s why your form sucks so bad, then. I thought maybe you just weren’t skilled enough to create and hold a decent physical form. I wouldn’t expect an angel to have the aptitude for that sort of thing.”

  He glared. “For someone so close to death, you are surprisingly insubordinate.”

  Yikes. I needed a distraction before I got myself even further into trouble, so I turned on the radio. It may sound weird, but I’m a sucker for 1970’s–era love songs, so that’s what I put on. I bopped along to Temptation Eyes, then heard familiar opening notes.

  “Oh, I love this one,” I announced.

  Samantha Martin, the human Samantha Martin had a nice set of pipes. She was in church choir when she was young, and was a darned good amateur singer before I Owned her. If they’d have had American Idol back then, she would have at least made it on the show. I Owned an opera singer too, but that skill didn’t come up much. I sing whenever I get a chance. In the shower, in the car, karaoke in bars. Sometimes I just sing randomly because it freaks people out. So it was nothing for me to perform car karaoke right now. Even with an angry, pouty, potentially violent angel sitting beside me.

  “When it all goes crazy and the thrill is gone…”

  It was “Just Remember I love You” by Firefall. I loved this song. Mushy, sentimental, perfect for serenading an angel. I grinned at Gregory and he looked back at me, a combination of amazement and anxiety on his face. He looked like I’d just sprouted two heads and scales. Of course, that he’d probably seen before.

  I continued to sing, belting out the chorus before turning my eyes back to the road. Gregory scooted a little away from me, a look of near terror on his face. It’s not like he could scoot far, though. He was supersized and my car was too small for distance.

  The station was really on a roll. I continued to serenade him with “Band of Gold” and “Don’t Pull Your Love Out On Me Baby” but turned the channel when they played “Jackie Blue”. I never liked that song.

  “I had you pegged for a Slayer fan, cockroach,” he commented in a strangled voice, as if the whole experience was more than he could handle.

  “Slayer? I can’t understand a damned word they are singing. It’s all ‘bwaa, rhaa, whaa, grrr, grrr, grr’. What the fuck does that mean? I’d rather listen to harpies wail than that shit.”

  He nodded his head in agreement and I’d swear I saw his lips twitch. No way he could actually be amused. At least I’d managed to put him in a less hostile mood with my unusual music tastes. Good thing as we pulled out of town and onto Route 15 south. I glanced at Wyatt and Candy behind me in the rear view and put the pedal to the metal. In a roar, I had dusted them.

  The highway was two lanes each way with a decent shoulder all the way into Montgomery County, Maryland. This time of day the cars were evenly spaced with a good bit of commercial truck travel along the route. I weaved in and out of traffic, honking rudely, darting around cars, cutting off the semis and passing on the shoulder. Today, I wished that I’d bought the red model Corvette instead.

  I was glad Gregory didn’t know anything about roads, or he would have wondered why I didn’t take the shorter way down 116. Wyatt was probably in Candy’s car looking at his GPS and bitching and moaning about the extra distance of my chosen route. Route 116 was shorter, much prettier, and there was not much traffic. This way would take us on the busy highway back tracking down into Maryland, then through Emmitsburg to loop back into Pennsylvania on Route 16. I looked over at the angel to see if his improved mood had survived our increase in speed.

  “Shouldn’t you keep your eyes on the road?” Gregory asked me. He didn’t look pissed. He probably thought I was trying to shake him up with my crazy driving. I wondered if he had ever been in a car before. Probably not, if he could gate everywhere. I doubted he’d ever driven, either. That would make him an auto virgin. I laughed out loud at the idea.

  “You know, you can’t kill me by wrecking your car,” he commented in that bored voice. “You’ll just destroy your vehicle. I won’t suffer more than a scratch. Won’t slow me down at all. You’re not going to get away from me so you might as well drive like a normal person.” He actually leaned his head back and closed his eyes, as if my erratic driving methods were putting him to sleep.

  I continued to drive like a possessed maniac. Stupidly, it took nearly five miles before I saw the flashing lights behind me. Good thing as we were almost at the Maryland border. I kept driving a bit, weaving aggressively but trying to keep the speed down so I didn’t lose the state trooper struggling to keep up. Finally, I pulled over into an old abandoned gas station, spinning out dramatically with a rooster tail of gravel dust.

  “Looks like I’m going to get a ticket,” I said. Gregory frowned at me with narrowed, suspicious dark eyes. “I was speeding, you know. Happens to me all the time. It will only take a minute and we’ll be on our way.”

  The Pennsylvania state police car behind us was a big white sedan. A huge Crown Victoria with the trooper badging all over and the light rack on top. It was a stupid car. If I were a state trooper, I’d make them get me a Ferrari.

  The guy behind the wheel took his time getting out. I wondered what in the hell was taking him so long. Did he have to fill out fifteen pages of reports before he even got out of his car? Finally, he opened the door and slid out. He was a young guy. Thin and fit in his grey shirt and dark grey pants. He wore short sleeves in the heat, and the shirt had black fringed thingies on the shoulders. He had a hat on with a chin strap, and I could tell his hair was a short buzz cut underneath. I couldn’t really see if he was cute or not, but he had a good body, and looked damned sweet in that uniform.

  The cop walked up carefully from the rear of the car, flicking the leather strap on his pistol holster for easy access. He also had a baton, and some pepper spray handy and ready. The baton wasn’t a big deal, but I hoped he didn’t spray me with the pepper spray. I hate that shit. I unwound the window before he got there, and just as he leaned in, I pulled out my mean and threw it at him while simultaneously pulling the pistol from my waistband and laying it on my lap. I put every bit of menace I had into my voice and announced that he was a fucking pig and I was going to knock him on his ass.

  It had the desired effect. The cop leapt back from the car and pointed his pistol at my head screaming “Out of the car! Out of the car and keep your hands where I can see them.” I looked curiously at his gun, but didn’t recognize it. I was hardly the expert from seeing Wyatt’s small collection, but thought maybe I could recognize the caliber. The trooper waved his gun at me, again indicating that I needed to get out right now. Or presumably he would shoot me.

  I smiled smugly at Gregory and he glared back at me in open hatred. Carefully, I opened the car door, letting the gun drop to the floor of the car while keeping my hands raised. Gregory got out too, and I realized he was doing something to try and soothe the officer and me. He was talking to the police guy in a low calm rumble and I swear I actually saw the deep blue wash over us both. It pulled and tugged on me with warm persistence, and I wanted to leave the cop alone and get back in the car. I wanted to rub myself on Gregory like a cat and have him look at me approvingly. Fuck no, I didn’t want to do any of that shit. No fucking way. I shrugged off the urge and glared at the officer again. The cop looked confused and began to lower his gun.

  “You fucking pig,” I snarled at him, trying to regain control of the situation. “I’ve killed cops before and I’ll kill you too. I’ll blow your fucking head off.” I took
a few steps toward him.

  Gregory redoubled his efforts and the air was thick and sweet with blue. I saw the officer shake a bit, sweat rolling down his forehead. The poor guy would be in therapy for years from this. Fuck, I’d probably be in therapy for years from this. The urge to kneel down at the angel’s feet and wrap myself around him was nearly overwhelming.

  The cop was slipping from my grasp though and I knew I needed to go all out. I walked up to the officer and slugged him right in the jaw. Not hard enough to knock him out, but enough to override all the calming blue shit. It worked. The guy grabbed me and slammed me face first against my car, yanking my arms behind me to cuff me. In a few moments, I’d be on my way to the police station. I could kill the cop, ditch his car, and be on my way to a gate while Gregory cooled his heels at some local station waiting for me to make bail.

  The angel kept pressing his calming influence to no avail. The cuffs were on, and I was halfway to the police car, when Gregory threw up his hands, reached out and grabbed the cop. I felt him let me go and turned to see the angel whispering in his ear. In an instant he had slumped and Gregory held him upright, moving to put him back in his car. I quickly broke the cuffs, and bolted. Plan B.

  I like to run. I’m not fast off the block, but I can go forever and keep a strong steady pace. The angel was a huge hulk of muscle. I hoped he wouldn’t be able to keep up and I’d somehow lose him. He couldn’t find me to gate to me if I kept my energy to myself.

  Unfortunately, I only made it about twenty feet before he tackled me from behind. I smacked into the gravel and slid across it with his considerable weight on top, scraping a good layer of skin off my face and body, and knocking the breath out of me. For good measure, he flipped me over on my back and punched me in my stomach.

  Looking up at him, gasping for breath, I realized that he’d totally lost control. His face was white and solid looking without pores in the skin, and blackness filled the entirety of his eyes. His teeth were no longer human, but sharp pointed little spikes, like piranha teeth. He actually glowed. Seriously glowed. He was so bright it burned my eyes. There was nothing in him but rage. Not a speck of feeling I could appeal to. Nothing but fury and hate. I grabbed my energy and prepared to empty the whole lot at him. It would probably blow a chunk out of the lower half of the state, but I might as well kill him along with myself. Better than me dying alone.

  His eyes widened with the realization of what I was about to do, and he smacked me hard across the face before I could even begin to form the blast. The blow knocked my head sideways and caused my grasp to slip a little. Enough of a slip for him to coat that silicone stuff over my energy again.

  “Oh no you don’t, cockroach,” he hissed at me through those pointy teeth. “Hold still,” he commanded, grabbing my arms by the wrists and thrusting them up above my head.

  Oh, sure. ‘Hold still while I kill you.’ Like that was going to happen. I wasn’t sure if he was going to execute me straight away or beat the crap out of me first, but I figured it was going to be excruciating either way. I wasn’t going down without a fight. I thrashed around with all my strength to see if I could budge him loose from on top of me. I even tried to knee him in the groin, assuming that would do anything. Wrenching one hand loose I flung a handful of gravel and dirt into his face. He shook his head and grabbed, unsuccessfully trying to secure my loose hand while at the same time attempting to pin my legs down with his. I bucked like a wild bull and smacked him with the little bits of energy that I could form. It was all I could manage to break free from the slippery shell he held in place around my energy.

  After a few minutes of this, he hissed in frustration, grabbed me roughly around my waist and flung me over his shoulder. My breath whooshed out as my diaphragm smashed against his shoulder and my head bounced on the concrete of his back. While I frantically tried to recover, he began striding off toward the abandoned gas station and my car. Gasping little breaths, I squirmed, kicked and hit and scratched with all my might. Unaffected, he continued on, tightening his grip painfully around my waist to make sure I didn’t manage to wiggle free. Wyatt and Candy were far behind us, not that they could intervene at this point. My mind worked furiously trying to find some way to break his hold, to get enough energy to knock him aside, to do anything, for surely I was going to die real soon. I’d tire physically, and without the use of my energy he had all the advantage.

  Suddenly, he shrugged me off his shoulder and slammed my back against the cement block side of the building. My head spun again and I felt the warmth of blood sliding down the back of my skull and onto my neck. Without allowing me even a second to move, he pressed himself against me, crushing me between his body and the gritty, pebbled concrete wall. I felt the stone embed itself into the torn flesh of my head and ground my teeth with the pain. At this rate, I’d be a shredded bloody mess by the time he finished me off.

  Slowly and carefully he transferred my wrists to one hand, yanking them above my head and pinning them to the wall. With his other hand, he maneuvered my hips, straddling me and pinching my legs between his own. Within seconds, I was held immobile between him and the building. The only thing still free was my head, so I tried to head butt him and bite whatever part of his face came within range. He was a good foot taller than me, so the best I could do was a light tap on his chest with my forehead before he grabbed my jaw with his free hand and held my head still. At least he didn’t have a third hand to whip out his sword. Of course, he could always bring that item out after I was a bloody mess on the ground.

  He held me in place and looked at me a moment, hissing with those pointy teeth, his eyes still huge, black, and horrifying. I hurt. I knew my face was a mass of road rash, could feel the blood trickle from my cheeks and down the back of my head in a slow drip. My arms were extended up at their limit with the joints straining uncomfortably in their sockets. My chest was heaving against his with tiny short breaths, and sharp chunks of concrete dug painfully into my back with the pressure of his body against mine. I was at the point of panic. I was trapped, and there was no way out. My mind helpfully imagined all the ways he could dispatch me in this position. He could rip my arms from their shoulder sockets, crush my jaw, dislocate my pelvis, pulverize my bones and organs against the side of the building, and then shred my flesh with his pointy teeth before finishing me off with the sword. That’s how I would do it.

  He took a breath, then he wrenched my head to the side facing my left arm, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye as he bent his head down. I felt an odd sense of disappointment that I wouldn’t get to see him rip me to bits. Anticipating popping joints and tearing flesh, I took a quick breath and tensed. The feeling that came was like a thousand hot needles as he bit down on me, right on the soft underside of my arm, just in front of my armpit. My shoulders ached, but stayed in joint. This was going to take forever if he was going to concentrate primarily on chewing me up. My faint hopes for a quick death vanished, and I felt him bite down harder.

  A burning sensation shot down into my chest and a mixture of vibrations shook me. Was there some poison in his bite? Was it that white stuff that Althean had shot at me? Would my insides dissolve like my hand had? It burned clear through my flesh and into my personal energy, branching out and searing tiny pathways. “This is it,” I thought, my mind blurring from the agony tearing through me.

  Then unexpectedly, underneath the pain, a far more enjoyable heat surged through me. Pleasure and pain are not mutually exclusive to my kind, and sex frequently involves what humans would consider abuse. Even so, I didn’t believe the angel intended to kill me in an act of rough sex. The warmth flooded me and the burning pathways in my personal energy filled with an electric glow. Reddish purple soared through my being. ‘Mine’ I thought silently as I floated in the stream of color. It was a faint and fleeting thought, without intent or power; almost like an echo from someone else. Strange.

  I didn’t think revealing my strange state of sexual arousal would do my curre
nt situation any good, but I couldn’t help the quick gasp and relaxation of my body as tension fell away and I ceased trying to struggle. Well, at least I’d be easier to kill now. And death would be a hell of a lot more fun.

  The angel paused for a second, then pushed himself harder against me ensuring I was held fast and continued with the hot needles in my arm. The pain was quickly changing over to pleasure and I wanted to give in to the incredible sensation. Dissolving in a huge wet orgasm at the point of death seemed like an undignified way to go out so I tried to think of things like zoning hearings, taxes, when my next oil change was due. Anything but the red purple waves singing through me. Shit, I hope he killed me soon, this was taking fucking forever and I was running out of boring things to think of.

  Floating in the pleasure, I was halfheartedly daydreaming about useless kitchen utensils when I felt a pull deep within me. Like strings had been embedded throughout my body and the angel was trying to draw them out. At first it didn’t hurt, then the strings stopped moving and Gregory began to yank, pulling with increasing irritation and frustration. Finally, there was an agonizing pressure, like he was digging in on a tug of war contest with all his might. The strings didn’t budge, but it felt like my whole body was about to turn inside out. Then there was a crack and snap as everything rebounded into me. It was a good thing I was held so firmly against the building because I probably would have fallen ten feet backwards from the release. I waited for it to begin again, but I only felt a stinging sensation and that familiar warmth as Gregory bit down again.

  An eternity seemed to pass before he finally lifted his mouth from my arm. I felt him stare at me, although I couldn’t see him clearly with my head held sideways against the wall. “Here it comes,” I thought. My bitten arm throbbed. I held my breath, waiting for my death. Slowly, he loosened his grasp and relieved the pressure holding me against the wall. I didn’t know what was coming, so I dropped my arms from their achingly extended position and stood there, looking at the front of his shirt and trying to slow my breathing. Finally, he took my arm, the one he hadn’t been gnawing on, and walked me over to the police car. That was it? A chewed up arm? Perhaps he was going to continue the job over here?