“Congratulations! She is with child.”
Because I am a reasonably mature adult, I refrain from breaking his large nose.
I am cool like that.
“Brilliant, I am pretty sure that we mentioned that on the way in Doc.” I tell him through clenched teeth.
He nods wisely and pulls a small airline sized bottle of scotch from his lab coat pocket and slams it down. Tossing it over his shoulder, he crosses his arms in front of him and gives me a shrug.
“Please to excuse if I state the obvious. I do not know what else to tell you, do you maybe need me to explain bees and birds?” He asks sardonicly.
Losing patience Marcus steps between us and picks the doctor up by his lapels and gives him an unfriendly shake.
“She wasn’t showing any signs of pregnancy a few hours ago you fool. Examine her and tell us what the hell is going on.” Marcus demands as he drops Greg ungently back down.
“Well that is weird then, is it not? Okey dokey, I will take another look see.” He says cheerfully.
He lays one hand gently on her forehead and the other on her stomach and closes his eyes. Letting out a long slow breath, he pulls the ragged crazy quilt of power that he has to him and tries to focus it on his patient.
After a long minute he steps away from her and leans unsteadily against a handwashing station.
“I know not what to tell you fellows, she is not human or really any identifiable form of Sub Rosa. For all me know, this rapid state of developing preganacy, is more or less like normal for her. Best guess? She is hours away from giving birth, how many hours I no can say.” He snaps his fingers again and the nurse doses him with vodka once more.
“It isn’t possible.” Genevieve says weakly from the examination table, her hand reaches out blindly seeking my own.
I move quickly to make sure that it finds it and I give her hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Shh, we will figure it out love.” I bend down and whisper in her ear.
“No, you don’t understand. I was careful, I knew what to do to make sure this never happened. It just isn’t possible, there is no way I would have promised…” She starts to tell me. There is weakness and urgency in her voice and they both alarm me in more or less equal measure.
A chill hits me as my brain begins to connect some very unpleasant dots.
“Promise what?” I ask her flatly.
“Forgive me Robert Jones, what I have done, I did out of my love for you. I only promised what I did because I was so sure that it was impossible. I am so afraid now, this can’t be happening.” There is desperation, terror and sorrow in her voice, that finishes connecting the dots for me.
“No.” Marcus says softly under his breath, as he also works out what she is talking about.
“What did you promise?” I ask her with a sick feeling in my gut that comes from already knowing the answer.
Before she can stop sobbing and answer, the lights all go out and the temperature drops a good twenty degrees as the scent of brimstone fills the air.
Chumley comes in and winks at me obscenely, beforing leaning against the wall by the door as he holds it open for his master.
Lucifer strolls in clapping his school girl hands gleefully.
“Oh come now Dabbler, surely you have worked it out by now? I mean, how dumb can one guy be?” He sneers.
Chumley giggles and the sound of it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“She promised me her first born son.”
Marcus steps between the devil and my love, and after another pull from the bottle, the doctor shrugs and takes up station as well.
I stand up and turn to face the bastard and everyone in the room is pulling power to themselves. All of us as best we can, with the gifts that have been allowed to us. Some more than others, some less, but all of us standing together.
“Over my dead body.” I growl at him.
“Well, hell yeah, that was pretty much always the plan.” The Japanese school girl form wavers for a moment and the beast dwelling within is briefly revealed.
Chumley steps away from the wall with a grin suddenly full of way too many really sharp looking teeth. He takes a step towards me as his hand erupt into wicked claws.
From somewhere outside comes the sudden cawing of ravens.
Chapter Fifteen
Time stops.
Well, for everyone, but me it seems.
Everyone else is frozen in place, I can see the demonic glee on Lucifer’s face and on the face of his servant. I can see the brave and hopeless determination on my best friend’s face, as he prepares to die trying to protect my love.
I can see the, oh what the fuck let’s do this expression on the doc’s face, he has lived so long, that he really doesn’t give a fuck how all this turns out. He will protect his patient or he will be destroyed trying.
Genevieve is frozen on the exam table, her beautiful face contorted by terror and desperation.
I look at her and take the time that whatever this force is giving me, to acknowledge my rage at her for not telling me what she did and to swallow that all down and use my love for her, to forgive her.
Nowhere as easy as it sounds, but love conquers all, haven’t you fucking heard?
I forgive her, because that is what I have to do to keep on loving her and have her keep on loving me.
No time to dwell it on it anyway, I have a more or less hopeless battle to fight against terrible odds.
She probably can’t feel it, but I give her hand a squeeze, meant to communicate all that.
And just when you might think, hell shit cant get much weirder, well it just up and does.
Odin comes strolling into the room.
He looks just like I remember him.
Old dude dressed all in black with a black eyepatch over one eye. Shaggy mane of dirty blonde and gray hair and a long tangled beard.
“We need to talk.” He says simply.
“Little busy.” I tell him gesturing at the frozen mess all around us, part of me isn’t accepting that any of this is real. I feel like an actor in a play that I auditioned for, drunk and now my lines are hard to come by, cause I missed all of the rehearsals.
He shakes his head ruefully and keeps walking towards me, as he walks two ravens come into the room cawing loudly, until they each settle silently on his shoulders.
“I am Odin, we have all the time that we need to work this out, son.” He tells me gravely,
My head is spinning from all that has happened, I have called my power to me with the understanding that whatever I can call, can’t save us from the evil that is about to come at us. Hell, my power combined with my best friends isn’t close to enough. I have a new respect for Greg Smith, for standing with us, but his help isn’t enough to tip the balance.
We are all probably going to die.
That thought should fill me with fear, instead I can feel a slow burning rage and lust for violence begin to fill me.
“Don’t fight it boy, embrace the anger, use it to do what you need to do. I am going to tell you a story while you get good and pissed off.” Odin says as he shrugs, sending the two ravens cawing back out of the room and into the night.
Power comes crashing into the room in an electrified dark wave, it washes past him and comes at me with a hunger that I can barely detect and don’t understand.
“Long, long ago, the other Gods became angered at my son Loki and demanded his death. I fought against that choice as long as I could, until his actions left no other choice but to side with the other Gods and ordered his death. I found that I could not bear his utter destruction, so I used my power to steal away and hide a portion of his essense. I had to find a vessel that no God would look at twice, so I chose to hide it in the newborn offspring of a Warlock and human,” His voice drones on in the background as the power filling the room finds its target and begins to fill me.
A scream builds silently in the back of my mind as power begins to work its way into me. Every cell of my being is bei
ng ripped apart and remade in the same pain wracked heartbeat.
“Time works differently between our realms, this was all long ago for me and mine, but I have taken the time to check in on you from time to time and you have made me proud. You have worked within the limits of what you apparently are and spit in the face of every foe. I have hidden what I left so carefully, that no Witch or Warlock or any other of our kind would ever detect it, I remove that concealment now and I am proud to call you, in a manner of speaking, a son of Odin.” There is a wash of power in his voice now as he makes the proclamation.
And then the wave of power consumes me.
My little reserve of power, bigger since Marcus used his abilities to increase it, is snuffed out like a single candle in the face of a hurricane.
In its place comes a sense of power without any real limits, at least none that my limited perceptions can understand.
It comes calmly, despite the rage that signaled its approach, it comes without ego, without lust for revenge or thirst for conquest. It comes as a simple offered tool to do what must be done to save myself and those that I wish to protect.
It comes without the promise that it will be enough to do what needs to be done, it simply is power. I am free to use it as best I can, to do what I feel needs to be done.
Knowledge and skills flood into me too fast for me to make rational sense of, they are pushed aside to be made sense of later. That is, if we all survive long enough for their to be a later.
Jury is still out on that one.
I can feel the son of bitch in me now.
Loki, son of Odin. Trickster, devil, fool. Called many things. I am still me, but I can feel the first vauge stirrings of him inside me as well. If we survive this night, I will have to come to terms with his influence. I don’t have a warm and fuzzy feeling that the process will be a smooth one.
Hell, I don’t even have a warm and fuzzy feeling about surviving this night.
I can feel Loki’s eagerness for the conflict to come, he doesn’t care if we succeed in standing against Lucifer and his minion or not. He simply lusts for the thrill of the battle. Win or lose he just wants to kick a little ass.
For right now, that totally works for me.
The calmness fades and is replaced with a smouldering rage that only needs the slightest of kindle points to ignite, to explode.
“I must remove myself from this moment, this struggle my boy. I can not interfere any further in this matter. Use what has been given to you. Defend your lady love and your friends for now, if you survive this, we will move on to other challenges. Nod if you are ready for what is to come.” His voice both booms and then fades as he prepares to take his leave.
I nod.
His faint smile of approval is the last I see of him, as he vanishes.
And then all fucking hell breaks loose.
Chapter Sixteen
Time starts up again.
Chumley comes at me with a horrible smile on his pale face. The smile falters a little, as I meet him halfway and grab him by his throat.
It fades completely as I tear his head off in one savage move.
I toss it overhand so it bounces off his Master’s chest, leaving a bloody smear on the pristine looking uniform.
Kicking the servant’s body out of the bloody way, I confront his Master, I can feel a manic grin spread across my face as I do so.
It scares me.
Even through the primalness of it, the joy I am taking in this fight, scares the shit out of me.
But not enough to stop.
I use some of my new found power to throw up a barrier between my love and my friends, who are protecting her.
Whatever this power is, nothing will harm them while I still stand.
Marcus is shouting at me, but I cant spare the time to listen just now, Genevieve is screaming, but sadly and shamefully, I can’t spare the time for that now either. Greg Smith just smiles slightly and pulls out another little bottle of booze and slams it down. He smashes it against the far wall and waves his nurse to escape out of the back door.
She wastes no time in doing so.
Smart nurse.
“Well now, Dabbler. This is, I must admit, a bit of a shock. Still, I always thought there was more to you than met the eye. But all that aside, the Devil, as they say, is still in the details I fear.” Lucifer blusters at me, in my heightened state of awareness, I can hear the shock in his otherwise calm sounding voice.
My only answer is a mindless challenging roar.
Have to fight against that.
For all my new found power, I still need to think, to be rational, not give into battle berserker rage. I need to find my way around whatever he throws at me.
I can sense that Marcus and the good doctor are attending to my lady love behind me. For now, I will use my strength to protect them, while they do so.
“Fuck off back to hell, Lucifer. You will claim no souls this night.” I growl at him, shocked at the power humming in my own voice.
Lucifer giggles coyley, hiding his mouth behind his hands.
I struggle against the impulse to wipe the giggle from his throat, by tearing it messily out, because I somehow sense that is what he wants me to try to do.
“Oh my little Dabbler friend, I can only remind you that despite your new found parentage and power, this has nothing to do with you. I have a signed contract between myself and your lovely lady and not even your new strength can change that. So, be a good little demigod and give me that which is mine.” Lucifer demands and I can taste the truth in his words.
“Take me instead.” I blurt out without hesitation.
He actually flinches a little at the honesty of the offer.
“Not the deal I am afraid, so please step aside. Not looking for any trouble, just here to claim what is rightfully mine.” He shakes a finger at me mockingly.
I throw a wave of power at him that actually knocks him a few steps backwards, sending him spinning into the wall behind him so hard that I hear bones break.
“Ok then we do this the hard fucking way.” He says as he pulls himself back up to standing position.
Then he begins to rip all of the flesh off of his frame, piece by bloody piece until the vicade of the Japenese school girl is utterly gone and all that remains is an echo of the true form of the fallen Angel, who is forever banished to hell.
Heat floods into the room and the smell of burning brimstone becomes overpowering.
The Beast is truly terrible to look upon. Even just this barest spark of the demonic force he has sent to our world, should be mindnumbingly terrifying.
But like my daddy always told me……I am not smart enough to be afraid of anything.
“Bring it you son of a bitch.” I scream.
That is when Greg Smith steps effortlessly past all of my barrier’s holding the swaddled form of the baby that Genevieve just gave birth to.
“Please to excuse, but there is small complication that you should both be, well like, aware of, I suppose.” He says gravely holding up the small wailing form.
“MINE!” The force of Lucifer’s scream stuns me for a moment, even with my new powers. His voice drips tones of greed, perversion and rage that are too vast for me to fully comprehend.
A wave of fire and ash reach out to consume the doctor and his little patient, but they splash harmlessly off of both.
The doctor makes a show of coughing and clearing his throat before speaking again. He holds the baby with one arm while brushing ash off of himself with the other.
“Before I was, so very rudely interrupted, I was about to announce that, well what the hell, let’s end the fucking suspense, it is a girl child!” He cackles giving the lord of hell the finger.
There is a single moment of absolute silence.
Lucifer screams, yeah you can go ahead and add it to the ever increasing list of the worst sounds that I have ever heard list and launches himself towards the doctor and my daughter.
Not today Luc
ifer, yeah, not today.
I catch him by one curved horn as he goes by and fling him back the way he came. He slams into the far wall, hard, but gets up too fast for my comfort level.
In the end, I am not really fighting Satan at his full power, I am fighting the shred of power he sent out into our realm. Still, that power is staggering by any standards.
That being said.
I kick his ass.
Rage fuels the blows that I am raining down on him, that is too simple really. It isn’t just rage, it is that and fear, fear of losing those I love, fear of failing to protect those that are mine to protect. Fear of not being strong enough to stop him. I smash at him harder with every blow and I can feel that which is Loki, urging me to keep smashing until there is nothing left to kill.
No.
No, not like this.
I will end this as me, not as some weird semi divine fragment of some ancient god.
“Enough, you have no claim here Lucifer. Begone now.” I sigh as I stand over his battered form.
He looks up at me and I can see the shrewd calculations in his eyes, he will retreat and come back at us, another day.
I don’t know if he can actually be destroyed, but that look makes me really want to give it my best shot.
“Well played little Dabbler, be warned now, you and yours just graduated to the top of my shit list. Not a place that any of you are likely to survive I fear.” He smiles up at me.
My shoulders slump and a weariness washes over me, but before I can give in to weakness two ravens come swooping in to rest on my shoulders.
“Well Lucy, old pal. All that being said I will trust on getting by with a little help from my friends.” I tell him with a grin.
Then both birds flap away from me and poop on the bastards head for me before disappearing .
Yeah, it is the little things in life that count the most.
The Lord of Hell roars one last time and then vanishes in a pillar of flame, taking the headless corpse of his servant with him.
I stagger and catch myself on the edge of a table, before I fall on my ass. Sound rushes in again, I can hear the high pitch wailing sound of my daughter crying.
Sin City Angels: The Dabbler Novels Book Two Page 6
