by Kai Leakes
“It was good. I needed that kill, and it balanced me out to watch my Guide. Been watching her for so long, trying to stay in the rules of the Guardians, but something is up with her. I noticed some shit today. After I got my dinner, I rolled out and went to watch her and her godsister. Everything was on point like normal. But, cuz, she doesn’t feel like a normal human, man, nor does her girl.” Sitting forward, Khamun tapped the edge of his bottle against the table, lost in thought.
“I read the records on her, been watching her when I got this role at nineteen, but her difference hit me hard today, Marco, and it’s not jiving that the Cursed are watching her too.”
“Why now?” Marco quizzically asked.
Khamun shook his head. “They’ve been watching her. They started coming around both of them for nine months now, heavy. Been providing me with good targets too, but today was different.” Hesitating, he tapped his ankh ring against his bottle. “Naw, let me go back. You know we can’t interfere as Guardians, but you know me, I have to. She’s been having blackouts again and almost ended up in the hospital yet again, man. I’m not down for that, so I been helping her, ya know.”
Marco gave a grunt and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Been giving her succubus dreams. I know, cuz.”
“Marco, man, that’s not what the light does, bro, not succubus dreams. It’s been . . . I don’t know. Passion always heals, right? No harm in that.”
Marco howled in laughter and choked before taking another puff. “Naw, you know where I come from, acere. But, my man, you got moves like a succubus and like a Stalker, but I know that ain’t what we do over here. So no harm. You was healing, not hurting. Not being The Attacker. I got ya back, family. But outside from all that standard intel crap, on the real, what got you smellin’ like burnt ass, man?”
Khamun flashed a smile and snorted, “Fuck off, man! You know what it is. Pure unadulterated demon, and now they are no longer watching them. They are now hunting them. My guide had her usual blackout today, and her homegirl had to deal with a customer that wasn’t who she thought he was. You know law dictates that we can’t get involved unless they attack our guides, and guess what”—With a slam of his fist, Khamun dissolved into the Attacker persona, his eyes darkening in anger. “Muthafucka was feeling himself and breached that line, man.”
Marco’s voice lowered, and his eyes flashed. “What kind of demon?”
Marco’s voice passed him by as his mind played a mental rewind of the events. Everything that happened made the Attacker shake his head, checking his own anger.
“¿Khamun, qué clase de demonio?”
Khamun regarded his cousin as he hunched his shoulders and replied, “It’s cool. It wasn’t her, but it was a Warlock.”
Marco threw his smoke in the air, and it disappeared with a clap as he grunted, “Damn! What the hell do they want with your guide?”
Fury made Khamun push his empty beer bottle. He watched it roll on the table as he raked a hand through his locks. “Listen, it gets sick. Punk hunted them and played with them. My girl was having spasms, hard ones. The Warlock went in hard on my girl’s godsister and set they spot on fire, man. I tried to wake her up, but her mind was locked to me. And when I say lock, I mean spiritual barriers were on her. What I just say? My guide, my human, she is not what I thought she was, and they know it. Neither is her girl.”
Khamun glanced around the room with a pause as he replayed the whole incident in his mind. “I had to set that shit straight, had to get to them, but my girl’s godsis was on it, and so was my guide. When they escaped that Warlock, they looked like us, Marco. They are not what I thought, man! Humans wouldn’t escape what that Warlock threw at them. My guide’s bestie, Kyo, threw a gargoyle spell at that punk, and it knocked him back. Bastard was shocked, man, and I had to act fast. I pushed him back in the building, while moving them across the street, and cut that asshole’s head off and fed.”
Before Marco could say, “What the,” Calvin appeared behind the couch, standing with his arms over his chest.
He bellowed, a scowl flashing across his handsome face, “What the fuck! How a human female do something like that?”
Khamun just shook his head and let out a sarcastic laugh. He pounded a fist with Calvin’s while reclining.
“I’m not even done. Let me tell you what I saw my girl do in the building. Baby was moving faster than a nut, damn it!”
Everyone in the room laughed hard.
Khamun continued, “When Kyo held her hand to help my guide, Sanna ran, dropped into a floor split spin to dodge the Warlock, while making him fly back against a wall. And, my brothas, Kyo fell back into a backbend and slid under a blocking beam over the door, holding Sanna’s hand as they ran outside. Damn, man! Y’all know the rest. That shit was raw.”
Calvin leaped over the couch, making it shake with his weight. Expertly landing in a sitting position next to Khamun, he exclaimed, “Baby girl acted like a Gargoyle. Khamun, what cha think?”
Running a hand over his face, Khamun sat back as he eyed his crew. “What do I think? I think that her skin was letting off the defense markings of a gargoyle, and her eyes sparkled like stone, man. Somehow, some way, that woman is a gargoyle, and all this damn time, no one in Society, none of the seers have documented this shit right here. Come on, man. One is a gargoyle, and the other, I can’t tell yet, but the Cursed want them both and can sense them better than us! Who are these women? Calvin? Marco?”
His boys sat quiet, each one in a different pose as they either rested near the couch or sat on it.
Khamun closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “All I can think is, muthafucka, please. This shit right here is not on that okeydoke tip.”
Marco suddenly stood and walked out of the room. Snatching some keys, a cold chill followed him as he headed to the garage.
Khamun clicked into action before his cousin and was already sitting out in his Escalade before his last statement sank into everyone’s mind.
Holstering his weapons and lowering his cap over his head, Calvin followed suit and sat on his cycle. With a glance to the moonlight, Calvin revved his cycle. His third eye sprung open at the sound of a comforting motherly voice, syncing with his psyche as images flashed before him.
Visions fed his mind as he understood what was going on. He put a gloved hand in the air for the fellas to see within, and both Macro and Khamun listened as he entered their mind.
“None of the seers could feel this, but we can’t go after them like this. We hafta hit them women at a different angle, so you can still do what you do, Khamun. I’m being told that they’re at their fam’s home and being questioned by the Blue.”
Brows furrowed, Calvin’s jade eyes illuminated as he licked his lips and tilted his hooded head to the side. “Yo, your moms, Lady Eldress is channeling some heavy info, Khamun. She said she’s been trying to position us where we can help the ladies, but since the other seers ain’t having her dreams, she thought she was having memories of past guides we’ve helped. She’s upset—naw, scrap that—she’s pissed.”
With a quick glance at Marco, who was ready to do damage, Khamun clutched the wheel of his ride, mentally listening to their brother-in-arms relay what they needed to know.
“She said, ‘Go protect, go interfere.’ Know what I’m sayin? But do not make yourselves known to the ladies, not yet. Ya heard me? She said to use the business to help them out, tell them that we heard what happened, and we want to move them to the building they had been looking at ASAP and that the fee will be taken care of because of what happened. I have to put a protection barrier around their homes, you know, do my thang, fo’ sho.”
Marco chimed in with restrained anger, “Comprendo. So we don’t let ’em know what we are, but they get to meet the men behind the business. Let’s do this. I feel their asses surrounding the guides, bro. We need to move out.”
Khamun clenched his fists, sitting back and thinking, while a nerve in his jaw began twitching. He zoned out as he thought over
the whole game plan. “Okay, this is what we do. We wait some days to let them know who Protection Corps is. I need to hunt those bastards. We need to hunt them bastards. They stepped over into my territory . . . our territory.”
Marco flashed a brief dimpled smile, and his fangs lengthened. His grey eyes darkened, and he heard Calvin load his gun and strap it to his back, while adjusting himself on his bike.
“A’ight! Slayer to Stalker, blood to blood, time to make it do what it do, familia!” he shouted out loud.
Driving off from their complex, Calvin glanced over his shoulder as he watched the massive building cloak itself in a mirage-like shimmer, appearing as a destroyed shipping dock. He had to remember to thank his adopted sister, Kalika, for choosing a great spot when she came back from India. Kali was their local tech Mystic and Slayer. She wasn’t a traditional Mystic, which always made her feel like an outcast, but that made her perfect for this house full of outcasts.
Calvin couldn’t wait to see his sis again. He still recalled how they had fallen into each other’s life back in Harlem at the park eleven years ago. That meeting was the catalyst in learning that he was an Immortal. More than that, in this new life of his, he was now a partial Mystic, something he didn’t realize he’d come back as. All of his lives, he could remember being trained as a Slayer. He even remembered being gifted with immortality in the bayous of Louisiana.
It made him smile and tighten his large hands on the handlebars of his cycle in fury. That life didn’t give him the happy memories he wanted, except for being gifted, but it was what it was—life. Now, he could only trip over how his lives had evolved. Outside of being a protective big brother to Kalika, he was a young thirty-year-old music producer. That was his thing. In all his lives he could channel the emotions, the history of people gone, which helped him define his sound and produce the type of music that always left a positive message in your heart, while making you kick it in the club, if need be.
His bro’s called him the Poet, the Renaissance man, or Mr. Black Panther, and he was cool with it. He was about his music and his family. Do or die was his motto. Mess with either, and you messing with death. He was an old-school Slayer. Hell, he had come up with many of the tactics of hunting from back in his old lives in the bayous, in Harlem’s roaring twenties streets, and as a ’Nam vet who’d joined the Black Panthers. He was about survival and the hunt, and he knew he was the go-to man about it all.
Calvin was a lean six eight, hazelnut-hued, football player-built brother with soul-searching emerald-colored eyes. He had to laugh when he thought about his eyes. Them eyes right here messed up many a woman’s sexual walls of protection, had him breaking them down like a train. His eyes marked him as a Mystic, and he was a damn good one at that.
Despite the fact that he was born and raised in Harlem, it was commonplace for many Immortals, or Disciples as they were called in Society, to still make a second home in the birthplace of their first life, and the same was true for Calvin. He spent many summers in “Nawlins” visiting his grandmother, who in the Nephilim Society would be called a Prophet, a human male or female, gifted with the abilities of a Mystic or just a Seer. Some kept the history of the Nephilim Society; others were just Guides and helpmates to innocents or Vessels.
These lessons were taught well to him and Kali. The family motto of them all ran deep in their minds. So they learned the rich history of their family and relatives. Kali and he both trained and spoke with their cousin Bishop, or Unc as Calvin always called him, who was like a second father to them both. They met and played with their close-in-age cousins, Sanna, Darren, and Amara, while keeping the Nephilim part of the family tree quiet from his young human cousins for their safety, as was typical in the Nephilim Society. It wasn’t uncommon to have human family out there in this massive world.
Spending so much time in New Orleans left him with a mixed an accent that blended into a sensual drawl that helped liquefy many females when he sang or spat his rhymes. He had to thank the Lord for that gift; it also helped lure many Cursed females to him, as an expert Slayer should be able to do.
Calvin pulled off his skull cap and narrowed his eyes, scanning the darkness before him. Observing the quiet downtown city streets of the Lou, he ran an idle hand over his low-cut fade, which had swirling African spiritual protection symbols artfully and carefully cut on one side of his hair in a part. He inhaled sharply and silently sent a prayer chant of protection over his brothers and the guides they intended to keep away from the Cursed. He put his cap back on and rolled out as the light turned green.
Khamun closed his eyes as he sat outside his Guide’s mother’s house, the cool night air idly flipping his locks. He rolled his shoulders as he heard Calvin pull up, hop off his bike, and quietly get in the backseat of the Escalade as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
One of the first rules younglings were taught in Society was, silence is golden, and the Attacker, or the Reaper as he preferred to be called by his bro’s, took that rule to heart. It was what fed them, kept them on their toes, and helped him find his prey, oh so well, and tonight wasn’t going to be any different.
Picking up his cell, he punched three digits and waited. “Lenox, relocate the contractors to the Nile building. Yeah, they overstepped the boundary. You know what to do.” Disconnecting his cell phone, Khamun motioned for his brothers to move out, informing their minds that they would take out the Cursed watching the Guide’s house. He closed his eyes as Calvin inhaled sharply and whispered a teleportation prayer.
Landing in the back of an empty house, he heard his bro’s land at the same time in different sections of the quiet neighborhood surrounding Cursed entities. He smiled. It never stopped to amaze him how his senses responded to the hunt. It was mind-blowing, almost addictive.
Quietly stalking, he scaled the side of the house, propelling himself upward, and stood on the roof in a low crouch. The adrenalin in his system made the muscles in his body twitch with anticipation and a slight calmness as he inhaled the cool night air. Cutting into the night, his amber eyes sliced through the darkness and slightly glowed with the touch of the moonlight.
At twenty-nine, Khamun was a Reaper. He had no other term to call it, because he still didn’t know what he was. No one in Society, not even his own parents, could understand his extra abilities. So the first time he went on a hunt, which wasn’t purposeful, and he fed from his first victim, he had decided to never tell his parents that their dear son was something unheard of.
His wings expanded into the night as he flew in the air, gliding into a leap, and landed on the top of a nearby car. He descended so lightly, not a sound was made as he jumped off and sprinted to the back of his Guide’s house without the Cursed knowing. Skidding to a halt, his fangs crested as he crouched low behind his Guide’s mother’s garage.
The air near the garage was filled with a putrid smell, and he knew a Cursed Gargoyle was near. Extremely near. His gloved hands fisted. He was tempted to retrieve a blade but opted to use his hands for the kill. He loved the feel of a Gargoyle’s flesh tearing in his hands as he sent the beast back to hell.
Resting a solitary hand on the soft grass, he was furious as the energy of the land let him glean what had occurred. They brought Gargoyles, which meant the S.O.B.s were on a mission to reap havoc. It wasn’t making sense. What was it that had a team of Cursed ready to kill his Guide? Usually, it was a simple Light-versus-Dark scuffle, an I-want-what-you-got war when it came to Guides, but this was different. This was more than one Cursed warrior here; it was a small team.
Coming back to reality, he clutched the grass and clucked his tongue as a nerve ticked in his jaw. Well, this was just interesting. He knew many parts of the Lou had areas where old slave and forgotten graves used to rest, or old church plots, but this was more. This was both. He grinned.
His Guide’s house happened to be resting on old holy land blessed by Native Americans, then later the Church through the generations. He could read the history and f
eel the pain of the past in the souls being cut off too soon due to bigotry, fear, pure animosity, and more.
His Guide’s mother chose a proper house location, and now it was time to handle what they came to do. He felt his brothers in the midst of the fight already as he waited for the Gargoyle to come his way. Rolling his sleeves up, intricate prayer symbols swirled on his forearms as he kept a palm flat on the land and another resting against the garage.
Marco was on a mission. He felt his cousin searching the neighborhood like a mad man. He reached for the barrel that was securely strapped on his back and moved quietly yet quickly, shielding himself in the shadows. He wondered if she was here. He couldn’t deal with the actions he would have to take if she was.
He eyed a Hunter who had backed up into his way. He stopped in the middle of the street then slowed his stride to a deliberate stroll, lighting a “trinity,” as they called it in Society. Trinities were rumored to be named after the three wise Disciples who’d first introduced the rejuvenating three-spiced herb anointing, and healing, non-addictive cigarillo to Society.
Putting the trinity out, he kept it in his mouth as he slightly nodded to the Hunter, who kept looking at him. His eyes scrolled over his staring target, and he kept his cool, silent and assessing. This was a female Hunter, dressed in dark colors that accented her deep-swept curves. He almost hissed when he saw a white collar adorning her neck, because this let him know the House she represented, another thing that marked her for death.
Marco chuckled softly and crossed his arms over his hard chest as he walked around the Hunter. His voice lowered into a drawl as he let his accent roll off his tongue, “Ey, so how long do we have to be out here watching like this?”
