More than a bit taken aback, I muttered, “You say all this almost like you believe it.”
“I do believe it,” she solemnly replied, as she glanced up at one of the throneView screens displaying the latest news broadcast of ‘giant man’ sightings from across the globe. “And it seems I’m not the only one. The anakim aren’t hiding anymore. Are they?”
“No,” I replied, fixated on her mesmerizing brown eyes. “They’re not.”
“Don’t get all messhuggina,” M said, assuredly. “Nothing you can’t handle.”
“Yeah,” I grumbled, thinking that was one hell of an over simplification of current events. “So, just to be clear — Am I Buballah or is she Buballah? Seems like you’re taking some serious Buballah liberties here.”
“I will Buballah whom I choose to Buballah when I choose to Buballah them,” she chided. “Fershtay?”
“Fershtay,” I humbly acknowledged, making the mental note that I’d really like to figure out what the hell Buballah meant at some point in the near future. “Moving on then … Why bring Erin into this shit show? Why now?”
“I already told you. It was time,” M simply replied, nodding at Erin.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Mariel explained my purpose, Dean,” Erin replied.
“Which is?” I eagerly asked.
Reverting back to a cheerful demeanor, she said, “Among other things, I’m evidently supposed to keep you out of trouble.”
“Well, good luck with that, Doc,” I grumbled, slamming home my beer and taking a healthy gulp from the other one on the bar.
“Easy there, Robinson,” she quipped. “Don’t think I won’t cut your sorry ass off.”
“Look at you. First day on the job and already throwing your weight around. Think I need to have a discussion with Rooster about his hiring practices. Not sure you’re going to work out here.”
“You could only be so lucky.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking another pull of the divine ale as I gazed at Erin still somewhat in disbelief that we were having this conversation in light of the impossible circumstances. “Lucky.”
“Speaking of Rooster,” she said ignoring my snide commentary, “he asked me to tap another keg of cider before he got back. Don’t go anywhere. M said you’d tell me about the different kinds of heifers.”
“Nephers,” I corrected her, choking on the sip of beer. “Nephers are the race of angel-human hybrid beings. Heifers are female cows — or potentially, fat chicks depending on which part of the country you’re in.”
As Erin gave me a ‘piss off’ sort of glare and headed to the other end of the bar, I shifted focus back to M.
“So, you planning on telling me what the hell’s really going on here? What’s the deal with Doc?”
“Erin has always had the Sight,” M replied, placing her coffee carefully on the bar. “And she’s now opened her eyes.”
“What the hell does that mean? And why the hell hasn’t she aged in fourteen years? I mean, I’m not complaining. She looks frigg’n amazing — especially in those jeans and pleasantly snug tee shirt. But it’s not natural. What the hell happened to her?”
“It is all part of her journey.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re giving me?”
“For now.”
“What about all that crap about her purpose?”
“To do what must be done — you will need Erin Kelly and she will need you. You’ll understand, Buballah. In due time.”
“Awesome,” I grumbled.
“There are more pressing matters,” she said transitioning to a somber tone while placing a hand on my shoulder. “I, as with all my kind, are to return to the Heavens and I fear it will be some time before we speak again.”
“Are you shitting me?” I scoffed. “Anakim are popping up on headline news and all the frigg’n angels are bailing? What the hell is that about?”
“We mustn’t interfere in the coming events,” she simply replied. “For the time being, the Earth must make do without us.”
“What about me?”
“As I’ve told you before, Buballah. You walk a path of destiny — and one that I can no longer walk with you. You’re on your own, kiddo.”
“More with the destiny bullshit,” I grumbled. “So whatever’s supposed to happen is going to happen and that’s that, eh?”
“You’re missing the point,” she said emphatically, as she rose from her stool and looked over the rim of her naughty librarian glasses. “Destiny is like Gefilte fish — it may look like a pile of schlock, but it’s delicious! Especially with a little horseradish and matzo.”
“That is so incredibly not helpful,” I muttered, adding ‘Gefilte fish’ to my growing list of mental notes.
“When all else fails, remember this, Buballah,” she quickly added, grabbing my arm. “Only by embracing mercy will the fate of destiny’s design be witnessed.”
And just like that — she was gone.
“Awesome,” I muttered, yet again finding myself in a state of total bewilderment at the hands of a celestial being. “Mercy and Gefilte fish. Sounds like a Hebrew boy band for Christ’s sake.”
Figuring I needed to put the latest M revelation out of my head for the time being, I started toward the Reliquary to debrief with the crew. My team, as with the rest of the Guild, had been literally canvassing the country for the past two days trying to pick up the trail of our oversized adversaries.
By the sheer magnitude of sightings, all indication was that some really serious shit was about to go down. Where and to what end seemed to be the pertinent questions.
We needed a plan.
At the moment, we didn’t have shit.
Although I was still a bit in the dark as to why Erin was at the Quartermaster, it was probably the safest place for her to be until we sorted everything out. For that, I probably needed to thank Rooster.
Either that or punch him in the face for not telling me what he was up to.
“Dean, you’re here,” said a familiar voice with a detectable hint of anxiety from behind me. “I, ah, thought I’d make it back before you. You didn’t happen to see —”
“The newly appointed hot bartender?” I said, cutting Rooster off as I quickly turned to find my enigmatic ginger colleague looking more than a bit apprehensive. “Sure did.”
“Right,” he muttered. “Awkward?”
“You think?”
“Sorry, buddy. It was M’s idea. She said it’s important that we keep Erin close. I wanted to tell you but figured you’d get all whiny about it.”
“So I’ve heard. And what’s with this whiny crap?”
“Hate to tell you this, but you get whiny when it comes to Erin.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, making the mental note to revisit this particular topic at a later time when a horde of unnatural giants wasn’t on the cusp of a global incursion. “Back to business. How’d you make out in D.C.? Any luck?”
“No,” he frustratingly replied. “Followed up on every lead. No discernible pattern. It’s just like before except they don’t seem to be eating people — yet. Feels like they’re on some kind of massive recon mission. I need to analyze all the data with Skyphos. Is everybody back?”
“Almost,” I replied. “Haven’t seen Abernethy and Caveman yet, but the rest of the crew is here.”
“Good,” he replied, grabbing a steaming mug of coffee from the bar that I swear wasn’t there a second ago. “Let’s head to the Reliquary. We need to get started.”
“Nae, Jackie,” grunted an unmistakable Scottish brogue laden voice. Turning to find the hulking frame of Big A suddenly standing there, he handed Rooster a crumpled piece of paper. “I need ye lads to check into something first.”
“Is this for real?” Rooster asked, studying the document.
“Aye,” the archdeacon grumbled. “Bring yer wee ice skates. And hurry.”
“Perfect,” I muttered, thinking that my long couple days
just got a bit longer.
Chapter 4
“Never understood the appeal of recreational ice skating,” Rooster said, somewhat academically, as we pulled to a casual halt under a group of barren trees wrapped with white Christmas lights on the north side of the Boston Common.
A light snow drifted from the night sky as we overlooked the crowded skating rink on the Frog Pond, quaintly illuminated by the twilight of the surrounding city. The post-holiday Friday night crowd happily zipped across the ice while doing their very best to avoid smashing into one other at high rates of speed. Some successful. Others, not so much.
“What the hell is there to understand?” I grumbled. “It’s frigg’n ice skating. It’s fun.”
Hearing Rooster scoff under his breath in response, I had the sneaking suspicion that I’d just opened the door for some random story from my esteemed, arcane colleague’s sordid past that I really wasn’t in the mood for. Son of a bitch. Here we go.
“Fun,” he grunted. “Flopping around on a half frozen canal in the Netherlands with animal bones strapped to your feet — with rope — was so incredibly not fun. It was a horrible necessity. And in retrospect, the most ridiculous freaking thing—”
“The Netherlands?” I asked, cutting him off mid-rant. “When the hell did you do that?”
“Early twelfth century,” he answered matter-of-factly. “It was the only way to get around back then once everything froze. We can thank the Dutch for that technological marvel. I mean, of all the dumbass things—”
“Animal bones. And rope?”
“Yeppers,” he scoffed. “Ridiculous, right? Unfortunately, I didn’t invent metal skates until a hundred years later. Took me a while to get the design right. As I recall, there was something about the ambient temperature of the ice and the molecular composition of the blade that really screwed with the aerodynamic profile. I mean the science was pretty basic, but given the tools I had to work with at the time and … “
“When am I gonna frigg’n learn,” I muttered to myself as he fluidly transitioned to geek mode and continued to bloviate while throwing his hands around in the air.
Although he didn’t look a day older than twenty-five, my ginger buddy had evidently been around a little while longer. I’d yet to figure out exactly how old he was but at this point I was starting to suspect he might be pushing ‘old testament’ status. And he evidently hated ice skating almost as much as he hated airports and piano bars. Which was really saying something.
“Hey, Brian Boitano,” I interjected. “Can we get back to business here? We’re on the clock, remember?”
“Right,” he muttered, snapping back into mission mode and pulling the otherworldly computer phone gadget from the pocket of his bomber jacket. “Sorry.”
“No problem.”
“Did you just call me Brian Boitano?”
“Maybe.”
“Not funny.”
“It was pretty damn funny.”
“No. No it wasn’t,” he coldly stated, as his eyes formed a piercing squint and flashed an unnatural fiery red.
“Right. Not funny,” I muttered, unable to hold back a smirk as I made the mental note to move off the topic.
Aside from being a centuries old technological mastermind, Rooster was a particularly rare type of nepher called a liderc and hence, had a bit of an angry alter ego.
And by angry alter ego, I mean that he’s been known to morph into an infernal twelve foot, scaly red hulk with talons the size of lawn mower blades. As such, I’d been trying not piss him off — too much.
“So what exactly did Big A want us to check out here?”
As his eyes shifted back to their normal blue and his fingers feverishly danced across the screen of his wonder phone, he said, “That piece of paper he handed me was a printed copy of a tweet that was posted a few minutes ago.”
“That one of those fritter things?”
“Twitter,” Rooster said, fixated on his micro computer.
So, the fact that I’d literally dropped off the face of the Earth in 1998 and didn’t resurface until 2012, had me playing catch up on a few of the technological advancements I’d missed out on. For example, it was clear that the entire concept of a mobile phone had taken a radical shift during my involuntary hiatus from the land of the living.
While fourteen years ago I would’ve used one to actually make a phone call, it seemed their new purpose was to type stuff, take stupid-ass pictures of oneself, and then post said stupid-ass pictures on these ‘social media’ websites.
I wasn’t actually sure why society had become fascinated with the notion of broadcasting every mundane aspect of their lives on the internet followed by LMAO, but I did stumble across a couple of dancing pet videos that were pretty epic.
So, at the very least I had that going for me — which was nice.
“Right,” I muttered. “So what was the treat about?”
“Tweet.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled. “Just frigg’n tell me what we’re doing here before I feel compelled to punch you in the face.”
“Well,” he said, handing the phone to me, “Seems that some dude using the handle @LadiesManLance411 took this video standing right here — roughly nine minutes ago.”
“Damn,” I muttered, “Looks like the ladies man has an affinity for large women … that look an awful lot like men. Actually, I think that is a man — in a bad wig and mascara. Yep. That’s totally a dude. Think I just threw up a little in my mouth.”
“Forget the she-male,” he grumbled, snatching the phone from my hand and manipulating the image with his fingers. “Look behind her — ah, him. What do you see moving through the trees?”
“Son of a bitch,” I said, picking up the distinct silhouette of two unnaturally large figures moving with great haste through the woodline surrounding the Frog Pond.
Although they weren’t in the video for more than a few frames, it was unmistakable. Anakim — the man-eating giants of legend and lore.
The bastard offspring of Heaven.
They were here.
Clenching my fists, I asked, “This was taken nine minutes ago? Which direction were they moving?”
“From the angle of the video, it looks like north. Maybe northwest,” he replied, turning and gazing into the darkness of the surrounding trees.
“Toward Beacon Hill?”
“Yeppers,” he replied, pointing to our front. “The State House is right through that clump of trees.”
“The State House,” I rhetorically muttered, “You don’t think—”
And it was right about then that things took an interesting turn.
As if on cue, a rather horrific series of explosions ripped through the night like claps of thunder causing the ground to literally quake beneath our feet. Subsequently, a barrage of impossibly large chunks of flaming brick wall filled the horizon like a surreal fireworks display.
“I think we found them,” Rooster blankly muttered.
As the familiar statue of J.F.K., that should’ve been proudly displayed on the State House lawn, hurtled through the night sky like a pissed off comet and blasted a sizable hole in the frozen ground to our immediate right, I grumbled, “That’s just wrong.”
“Seriously wrong,” Rooster confirmed, intently watching the shower of airborne building fragments.
“I think we should go say hi.”
“Be wrong not to,” he coldly agreed as his eyes flashed a brilliant red.
Willing the cloak into being, it elegantly manifested in a spectral flash of white luminescence and billowed about my shoulders.
The Deacon’s cloak — My gift and my curse.
The ever present source of my abilities.
The wrath of God incarnate.
A divine means to an end.
Its otherworldly power coursed through my body like an electric current as my lips curled into a dark smile. Feeling the mental switch flip to the on position, I slowly pulled in a long, deliberate breath.
Cleared my mind.
Focused my thoughts.
Found the Balance — the perfect balance between wrath and clarity.
As the unfathomable power welled up in the deep recess of my soul and the expected sensation of calmative awareness washed over me, I grumbled, “Game on.”
“What’s the plan?” Rooster asked.
“You shoot their kneecaps. I’ll cut their heads off,” I replied, as ethereal gauntlets of indestructible, argent metal manifested on my forearms and fluidly encased my fisted hands. “Simple. Easy to remember.”
“Good plan,” he acknowledged, pulling off his leather bomber jacket to reveal the literal arsenal of guns, knives, swords, and other random shit strapped to his torso. “Try and keep up this time.”
As his skin turned an unnatural red to match the color of his eyes, he drew both semi-automatic pistols from the dueling shoulder holsters hanging under his stringy arms and plunged headlong into the darkness of the trees.
“Keep up … my ass,” I muttered, pulling the hood of the cloak over my head and willing the spatha into being. Feeling the presence of the scabbard on my back, I drew the otherworldly gladiator sword in a blur of motion and took position on his flank.
As we made a determined beeline toward the giant beasties apparently ripping apart a historic corner of my favorite city, I had the unequivocal feeling that my long night was just getting started.
Chapter 5
Moving with unnatural speed, we traversed the north quadrant of the Common in a matter of seconds. Emerging from the shadows of the park onto Beacon Street directly opposite the State House lawn, I pulled to an abrupt halt as the awaiting vision of unadulterated destruction and fiery apocalypse was almost too much to wrap my head around.
The street itself was littered with burning sections of granite and brick, while the poor bastards that happened to be driving by at the time of the explosion crawled out of their mangled vehicles in various stages of disfigurement. The snow tufted, seven acres of pristine landscaping was a smoldering fallout zone like something you’d expect after a carpet bombing. Every tree in sight was spitting flames like a macabre torch; and the ornate series of stone steps running through the center of the majestic lawn looked like a fleet of Sherman tanks rolled over them.
Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Page 3
