by Amy Vansant
I just want gas. What do I have to do to get gas?
Standing with his back to the pump, he saw a large cornfield spreading for miles in every direction. Deep in the center of the land, a farmhouse sat nestled, the yellow light in the windows glowing brighter as the last of the day’s light slipped away. He felt compelled to investigate. Maybe it would be a good place to rest and plan the next day’s travels.
No. It’s more than that.
He found it harder and harder to keep his eyes off the house.
I need to go there.
He completed refilling his vehicle and pulled into the long driveway that led through the neglected cornfield to the farmhouse. He drove slowly over the potholed dirt road and stopped fifty yards from the house’s wide, crooked porch. The house was large, but old and in disrepair, the entire roofline slanted nine degrees to the right as if the structure were sinking into the land. Paint peeled from the grand columns that held aloft the front porch.
He turned off the car and stepped out. Caught by a breeze, the torn screens of the porch waved hello to him as he approached. He climbed three short steps and pushed open the porch door, which hung crooked on its hinges. The porch was empty but for a rocking chair, several empty planters and yards of peeling white paint, all illuminated by the glow of the inside lights. He stepped to the main door and tested the knob. He leaned to the right to peek through the window, but the moment he did, the house went dark.
He chuckled. He hadn’t arrived unnoticed after all.
Rathe put his fist through the window of the door and reached inside to unlock the knob. He opened it a foot and waited. No one came. He took a step into the foyer and cocked his head, listening for any sound. The house was silent, but he could feel a presence nearby. She barely breathed and moved like a cat.
Sneaky girl.
He looked up and saw the balcony of the second floor connecting two staircases on either side.
She’s not up there…she’s on the stairs…
As Rathe began to turn toward the presence on the stairs, he felt his feet yanked from beneath him with one great jerk. His head slammed into the floorboards as he flipped upside down and flew toward the ceiling. He found himself dangling, six feet off the ground, his ankles pinned together by rope.
Who has a spring trap in their foyer?
“You’re in a world of hurt now, brother,” said a voice.
“Wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve only been here a few days and this would be my second world of hurt. I’m starting to think it’s kinda my thing.”
The voice chuckled.
“You crazy?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. Now that you mention it, I hadn’t really thought about it.”
He heard footsteps on the left staircase and looked that way in time to see a figure turn the corner. He heard a click, and the room flooded with light.
He surveyed his captor as he swung from side to side. She was a muscular young woman wearing a black tank top and tan shorts. He guessed her height at six feet tall, though it was difficult to be sure while hanging upside down. Her short brown hair was choppy and a shorn pattern crisscrossed her scalp, giving her a motley appearance. Around her waist she wore a gun belt, with one gun holstered on her right side. A leather harness consisted of two thin straps, one over each shoulder, crossed over her tank. In her hands, she cradled a shotgun. She looked like a girl on Christmas morning wearing the cowboy costume Santa brought her.
“You’re seventeen? Maybe older?” he asked, remembering the old man’s assessment of his own age.
“Eighteen. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“You’re adorable.”
The girl clenched her jaw and pointed her shotgun at him. “What made you decide to die here?”
He laughed. “Oh, I like you. Do you have other tricks? Beside this incredible snare? How do you fight?”
“How do I fight?” The girl huffed and put one hand on her hip while the other kept the shotgun pointed level at his chest. “I’m a level ten black belt in Ty Can Do.”
Rathe squinted. He’d done some research on fighting techniques before his confrontation in the New York City park, and while it hadn’t done him any good, he’d read enough to know what the girl with the shotgun was trying to say.
“You mean Tae Kwan Do.”
“No, I mean Ty Can Do. My name is Ty and I can do anything I need to do to kick your ass.”
Rathe put his hand on his cheek, grinning at her.
“I think I love you.”
“Well, I’m glad your last moments on earth were happy ones,” she said, pumping the shotgun.
“Wait, wait, wait. Ty, is it? Is that short for something?”
“Tyannah. Not that that’s any of your business either.”
“Okay, then, Tyannah. Mind if I test you?”
Rathe blinked into his energy form, phased through the ropes and flipped to the ground. He stood before her, hands out and fingers spread to show he meant no harm.
Without hesitation, the deafening boom of the shotgun exploded.
Rathe spun back, catching himself against the side of the staircase as a fire burned through his thigh.
The girl had shot him in the leg.
She pumped the shotgun a second time.
“Wait!” he screamed, holding out his hands. “Wait!”
“How the hell did you do that?” she asked, her voice both forceful and shaking. “How’d you flash red and slip outta those ropes? You make another move like that and I will air condition your torso.”
“Wait,” he said again, standing on his left leg as his right toe gingerly brushed the floor. A flash of red light streaked across his right thigh, his bloody jeans replaced by clean, unbroken fabric.
Ty’s gun went off a second time and Rathe jumped to the banister of the stairs, balancing on his toes and fingers like a bird on a wire. The scattershot blast peppered his chest and left arm, but he’d avoided the brunt of it, which left a tattered mess in the wall behind him. He flashed a panicked look towards the hole in the plaster, thankful he’d suspected the flash of his healing would inspire her itchy trigger finger. If he hadn’t moved, half his body would be embedded in the wall.
Ty scrambled to snatch a leather bag from the stairs on her side of the room. She’d pulled additional shells from the pouch and had the gun half loaded by the time Rathe jumped back to the floor and held up his hands.
“You want to fight? Let’s fight,” he said. “If I win, you have to let me go. Fair?”
“What happened to the blood?” asked Ty, motioning to Rathe’s leg with her head as she slipped the second shell in the shotgun.
“No weapons. We’ll fight hand to hand, okay?”
“Why the hell would I do that when I can just shoot you? I have a gun. Who gives up a gun?”
Rathe flashed forward and snatched the shotgun from Ty’s grasp before she could release a third blast. He snapped the gun in two and tossed it towards the back of the house before resuming his position at the base of the left staircase, his hands held high. The entire motion had taken less than two seconds.
Tyannah’s caramel skin grew paler as she pulled a thick-bladed knife from the sheath strapped to her back.
“Fine,” she said, crouching and waving the knife towards him. “But I’m keeping my knife.”
“And your gun,” said Rathe, nodding to the holster on her hip.
“Just pretend that isn’t there.”
He chuckled. “Oh, sure. Should I pretend that hole in the wall isn’t there, too?”
Rathe crouched, mimicking the girl. Ty made the first move, faking a slash at his face, only to sweep across his midsection. He easily avoided contact with the blade. She licked her lips as the two squared off again.
“Nice,” he said. “That could have worked.”
“What do you mean could have worked?”
“As in it could have worked if I wasn’t amazing.”
Rathe sang the last word
, giddy with how much fun the farmhouse visit had turned out to be. His last word still hung in the air as he lunged forward and punched Ty in the stomach. As she doubled over, he pounded his fist into her back and knocked her to her knees. He raised a leg to kick her in the face, but she thrust out both forearms, blocking the kick with one and slicing his Achilles tendon with the knife in her other hand. He felt the pain and fell back, nearly collapsing as his injured leg failed him. He healed himself and she took the opportunity to roll sideways and flip to her feet, surprisingly agile for a tall girl in a cramped space.
Rathe studied her face. Her color had returned. She seemed cool and determined, barely flustered by his attack.
“Nice move,” she said.
He leapt forward with inhuman speed, slapped her across the face, and returned to his place, six feet away from her.
She pressed her free hand to her cheek. Her eyes watered.
“You slap me like a bitch again and I’m going to kill you,” she growled through gritted teeth.
Rathe could see she meant every word. For some reason, his simple slap had rattled her, whereas the stomach punch and crushing blow to her spine had only steeled her determination.
Pondering this conundrum, he failed to move when she suddenly slid towards him, feet first, in an attempt to knock him off his own. As he began to tumble forward he flew upward and remained hovering above her, just out of her reach.
Ty scrambled to her feet and stood staring at him.
“What the hell…that has to be cheating.”
He smiled down at her. “I—”
Rathe cut short, unable to finish his thought. Tyannah’s knife had pierced his jaw and split the roof of his mouth, penetrating his nasal cavity and stopping inches short of his brain. If she’d thrown a slightly longer knife, things might have been even worse.
He’d never seen it coming. The pain was exquisite, both the physical agony and his inability to expel a verbal retort. He shuddered to think what the animal might have done to his body had he fallen to the ground. It could have taken him weeks to piece himself back together.
“Cat got your tongue?” asked Ty.
What a strange thing to say.
Rathe grabbed the knife and pulled it from his jaw. He whimpered, he didn’t want to sound weak, but he couldn’t help it. Again, he’d been embarrassed in combat. He needed to build an army around him for protection. He needed to come to grips with the fact that fighting wasn’t his forte.
“See, I’ve only known you for ten minutes and I already figured you out,” she said, pulling her handgun from her holster and taking aim at Rathe. “I say something, and you gotta say something smart back. ‘Cept you couldn’t, that time, could you?”
Rathe flashed into his energy form and reappeared, sealing the bleeding hole where the knife had been. Still hovering above the girl, he rocked his jaw back and forth.
“Should I fill you full of lead or do you want to tell me what you are and why you’re here?”
“I can’t believe you haven’t already filled me full of lead,” he said, lowering himself to the ground as far away from the Amazon as he could in the short foyer.
“Well, that’s the other thing I figured out about you,” she said, following his progress with her gun. “You’re not human. You probably coulda killed me anytime. You don’t want me dead, or I would be dead. I was a lot less scared after that.”
He rolled her words around his mind. True, he hadn’t tried to kill her, but now he wondered if he could have. Everyone on this planet was better at fighting than he was.
Best to save face.
“Yep,” he said.
“So why’re you here?”
“I need a hunter and I don’t have decades to train her.”
“How’d you know I was a hunter?”
Rathe’s eyes popped wide. “You already hunt Angeli?”
What luck!
Ty scowled. “Hunt what?”
They stared at each other, both their brows furrowed with confusion.
“Wait, what do you hunt?” he asked.
“The usual stuff. Deer, rabbit, squirrels…”
“Oh,” he formed the mental pictures of a squirrel and a rabbit. The shape of deer escaped him, but he suspected from the size of the other two animals that it was nothing like hunting Angeli.
“Deer don’t fight back, do they?”
She laughed. “What? You don’t make no sense.”
“Never mind. Look, I came here because you’re a hunter. I felt it. I saw you a mile away. Literally. I was at the gas station.”
He pointed towards the road.
“What’s gel-lee?” she asked.
“What?”
“You asked if I hunt and gel-lee?”
“No, I asked if you hunt Angeli. That’s what I need you to hunt, Angeli.”
“What is it?”
“They’re creatures very much like me.”
“They’re people?”
“No, they’re Angeli. They look like people though. Sometimes. Yes.”
“And you’re an Angeli?”
“No, Cherubim.”
Rathe paused. The word had just popped out of his mouth.
Cherubim? Is that what I am?
“Your name’s Cherubim?”
“No, I am a Cherub. Cherubim is the plural. I have no idea why I know that so don’t ask me.”
“What’s a Cherub?”
“I have no idea. Get back to me later. I might know then. These things come into my head eventually.”
“You sound kinda crazy, I’m not gonna lie.”
“I’m not crazy. It’s the damn process. It’s mysterious. Pretty annoying, really.”
“So these Angeli you want me to hunt. They look like people?”
Rathe looked down at himself. “I told you they look like me. Do I look like a person?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then…?”
“Your eyes are all black though, like my brother when he got punched and his whites got all dark and bloody looking.”
“My eyes? Dammit. I’ve been having trouble with that. Hold on…”
He closed and then opened his eyes.
“How about now?”
She squinted at him. “That’s better. They’re still crazy black, but they’re black in the general area they should be.”
“Good. Let me know if it slips again.”
Tyannah smirked.
“Are the other Cherubs like you? You’re kinda funny.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“These Angeli…are they angels? With wings?”
“Wings like these,” he said. He stretched his brilliant red wings as wide as he could in the cramped space. Tyannah ogled the complicated strands of light weaving to create his appendages.
“They’re like the bones of a butterfly’s wings without the paper in between,” she said, her jaw slack with wonder. “Can I touch them?”
“I wouldn’t. I’m not totally sure how to control them. They might burn you, or grab you or…boy you ask a lot of questions. This is embarrassing.”
“They do look like they’re made out of fire.”
“If you say so.”
“The Angeli have wings like those?”
“Yes, only blue if I remember right. That whole episode is a bit of a blur.”
“I don’t know if I want to kill angels. That don’t seem right.”
“They aren’t angels. Do you see any feathers?”
She shook her head and then crossed her arms over her chest, chewing on her lip as if deep in thought.
“What’s in it for me?”
“You’ll help right wrongs and punish evil. You’ll never want for anything. You’ll be faster and stronger and when you’re wounded you’ll heal.”
“The way your leg and chin did?”
“Less flashy, but yes,” he said, recalling his finger bruises on Anne’s throat disappearing as quickly as they appeared. “And, you’l
l get to live for a thousand years.”
There’s another little tidbit I didn’t know before. Why do I know that?
Tyannah shook her head. “A thousand years! That’s crazy! I’d be so old!”
“No, you won’t age.”
She lowered her gun to her side.
“When you said I could punish evil, did you mean people who hurt kids and women and animals they’ve no plan to eat?”
“Sure. Once the Angeli aren’t around that’s all you’d be doing.”
“Sounds like a good job.”
“The funnest.”
“What does it pay?”
He rolled his eyes. “More than you can imagine. Remember the part where I said you’d never want for anything.”
“Can I get a dog?”
“Sure.”
Tyannah grinned.
“Okay! Is that it? Am I hired?”
“Yep. Except for one tiny thing…”
Rathe’s wings glowed blood red and he shot the right extremity forward like a laser, penetrating Tyannah’s abdomen and impaling her body on the tip of the appendage. He lifted her off the ground. She gasped, frozen as she rose higher, her eyes wide and pupils ringed white with fear. The gun slipped from her fingers to the ground with a clatter.
He stared up at her as the life began to drain from her body.
“…first you have to die.”
He lowered her limp body toward him.
“I’ve partially cauterized the wound so you don’t die too quickly,” he said, her face a foot from his own.
Her eyelids began to flutter and droop. Her gaze never left his, her jaw trembling but no sound escaping.
He took her face in his hands.
“Now, this is the part that hurts me. That is, I have a feeling it will be painful for both of us. Funny thing is, I’ve never done this before. You probably wish I’d mentioned that before you agreed, huh?”
Rathe grabbed a handful of her short hair and used it to make her nod.
“I thought so. You probably wish I’d mention a lot of things, huh?”
A low gurgling noise bubbled from Tyannah’s lips.
“Oh, boy. You don’t look well at all. I’d better hurry.”
Rathe closed his eyes and tightened his grip on her skull, praying the knowledge and ability to turn the primitive giantess into a warrior would leap to mind. He pushed a small portion of his energy into her, opening an electric bridge between their bodies. Reaching deep into the center of his being he willed a tiny piece of his core to break away. A stabbing pain shot through his chest. His knees buckled and he stumbled as he struggled to keep her body aloft. He felt the power of his wings flickering and lowered the young woman to the ground, his hands still cradling her face, keeping the connection between them intact. He retracted his wings and knelt beside her supine figure, willing a kernel of his power through the conduit connected to his nucleus.
