by Sam Cheever
I felt like I should have been offended by my father’s less than politic statement but I understood James Phelps too well. It sounded just like him. I knew he loved me but he wouldn’t want special treatment for anyone in his family. It went against the grain.
Myra went on. “But He told your father that you were anything but normal, that the fate of the human race might very well rest on your shoulders some day and that he didn’t have a choice. I was yours.” Myra leaned toward me and spoke in a conspiratorial voice. “Between you and me, I think he did it because he someday hoped to lure your father back up.”
I swallowed hard, hoping she didn’t notice. I looked away guiltily.
“What about Darma?” I asked just to avert my very observant angel’s attention from my guilty face.
Myra peered carefully at me for a few beats before allowing herself to be averted. “Your sister does not appear to have gained much from our powerful family tree. She has only minimal powers and what she does have she represses.”
“With a vengeance.” I agreed.
“Anyway, whatever task He gave you to do, I will help you with, Astra. That’s why I’m here. Please don’t shut me out.” She cocked her head and gave me an affectionate tweak under my chin with one, velvety soft finger.
Then she shimmered away.
I immediately turned to the televisual. “Dial James Phelps.”
My father’s handsome face came online almost immediately.
“Blessed Be, daughter.”
“Blessed Be, Father.”
“I understand you’ve had an important meeting today.”
My eyes widened. “How’d you know that?”
“You underestimate the celestial army’s communication system, Astra. I might be earth bound but I’m not, as the humans would say, out of the loop.”
I knew his army kept him apprised of everything that happened in the Big House, it was one of the things that had kept him sane over the years. “I should have known they’d fly to tell you.”
“Can you tell me what it was about?”
I thought about his question for a couple of beats and then nodded. “How about meeting me for dinner at that little super terra diner downtown?”
“Roxies?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled. It had been my favorite place when I was a kid because they served old fashioned ice cream floats at a shiny silver counter. It was a retro spot, with retro food and a pre-great-war feel to it. Even as an adult I still loved it.
I’ll meet you there in three minutes. My father said.
I laughed, “You’d better give me ten minutes. Some of us can’t shimmer across town.”
He nodded. “See you then.”
~SC~
He was sitting in a booth at the back of the diner. As usual, I received a start of surprise when I saw him in normal, human clothes. He just wasn’t the sweater and jeans type. His angelic robes, which he still wore whenever possible, suited him much better.
I kissed his flawless cheek and sat down across from him. He’d ordered me a large root brew float, with chocolate ice cream and a mountain of sweet frothed cream on the top. I grinned like a kid as I leaned over the float and made a huge dent in the sweet cream on the top with my tongue. Closing my eyes I sighed. “Ummm. Thanks for remembering just how I like it.”
His smile was soft with memories. “I can’t believe you still come here. Although I guess this place is filled with good memories.”
Yes it was.
Memories of my father, Darma and me sharing dinner and ice cream on all those nights when my mother was too busy to join us. They were good memories but they were stained a bit around the edges with disappointment and a sense of something lost.
I watched my father over my tall float glass and he seemed upset about something. I presumed he was worried about my meeting with the Big Guy. As well he should be. I sucked thoughtfully on my creamy root brew for a few minutes, casting about for a way to start the conversation. Finally he saved me the trouble.
“So.” He said, with a narrowed glance in my direction. “I’m guessing He wants you to take on some new, ever more dangerous and impossible task.”
I tried not to grimace. Father was partly right. “Actually, yes on the new and impossible part, no on the dangerous part. At least I don’t think it will be dangerous.”
He cocked his head slightly, causing the light to pick up the golden highlights in his red-gold hair that always made me think of halos. I’d asked him once, when I was about five, if he had a halo hidden in his hair and he’d said no. He told me he’d given the halo back to God. That response had been singularly unsatisfying at the time and I still didn’t like it much, mostly because it had pulled the light completely out of his blue eyes.
“What task have you been given? Can Myra and I help?”
I tried on a smile and hoped it wasn’t the one that made me look like I had gas. I felt like it just might be that one, so I tried to stuff more happiness into it. I think the result was pretty sucky though. He started to look worried.
“Actually yes, you can help me a lot with this task.”
“Really?”
“Yes, the task is actually you.”
He frowned and opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a cool, husky voice from behind me.
“Isn’t this a lovely picture?”
Father looked up and his frown deepened. I tensed. Only one creature could make my father look like that.
“Hello Astra, you’re looking...strong.”
I turned to look up into a porcelain-skinned, oval-shaped face with a delicate chin and high cheekbones. Wide black eyes with thick lashes gazed back at me with a consumptive kind of power which told me, without words, that she had not appeared at my elbow by accident.
Her beauty was, as always, breath capturing. Tall and lithe, with thick black hair that sparkled in the dull light of the diner with purple highlights, Danika Phelps couldn’t help taking over the room. The power that radiated off her like waves of heat off black metal on a one hundred twenty degree day didn’t hurt either.
“Hello, Mother.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maternal Mayhem
A mother’s love is staunch and true, no matter what the test
But when her love is bent on power, she rarely shows her best.
“Blessed Be daughter.”
The traditional wiccan greeting was innocuous but somehow didn’t feel that way coming from her.
“Blessed Be. What brings you to this lowly place?”
Danika shrugged shapely shoulders and looked around, barely holding back a grimace of distaste. My mother found many things in life unpalatable. Among them, her family.
She turned back to my father and tried a warm smile. I didn’t buy it and I was sure my father didn’t either. We knew her too well. “Hello James. You’re certainly looking...human.”
The top of her smile curled up just the tiniest bit, just on one corner but enough to tell us what she thought of my father sitting in an ordinary diner wearing ordinary clothes. Always sensitive to status and power, my mother liked to forget my father was a powerless fallen angel without wings. Despite the fact that he’d fallen for her.
His allure to her had faded away with his wings and gossamer robes. And she’d never bothered to hide that fact.
“Hello Danika. I’ve been hearing bits and pieces about your activities from the other commanders. They’re very concerned with your current path.”
She dropped the smile and sneered. “They have no business monitoring my activities, James and you can tell them that for me.”
My father glanced quickly at me and seemed to make an effort at remaining calm. “Your life sphere encompasses many others, Danika. Your activities are of necessity important to the celestial army. You know it to be true.”
She flung a dismissive hand at my father and turned to me, affectively scorning him and his concerns. “I am glad we met today, Astra. I’ve
been wanting to contact you. I wish to discuss your future. It is time I took a hand in guiding your choices.”
I stared at her for several beats, wondering if my brain had perhaps melted. Surely I didn’t just hear her say she wanted to start acting like a mother.
“It’s a little late for that isn’t it, Mother?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “On the contrary, Astra, it’s the perfect time. You are of a responsible age and your powers are growing. You will need guidance on how to use them.” She sent my father a brief but scathing glance. Her meaning was clear. Obviously she didn’t consider him adequate to the task of guiding me.
I had no intention of letting her “guide” me, but I never got the chance to tell her that. Two things happened at once. DD Raoul walked into the diner and stopped dead just inside the door, blinking in horror. And Emo shimmered in to stand beside me, a slightly agitated look on his face.
My partner spoke first, eyeing my mother as if she were a poisonous snake from Pluto, where the most deadly snakes in the universe existed. “Astra, we’ve found the hostages but we have to move fast. Alcott’s sent a superdemon to kill them.”
I looked back and forth between Emo, Raoul and my parents and wished I were an amoeba so I could split into four parts. Well three parts anyway. My mother didn’t deserve her own part.
Figuring his mission was the most dire, I offered Emo my hand, remembering only at the last second to turn to my father. “I’ll call you later.”
His eyes sparked with something that looked like humor and then I was locked in a place without movement and sound, the reassuring heat of Emo’s hand in mine.
We landed in a dank, moldy-smelling space that had the feel of being underground. I recognized it immediately as the tunnel beneath the dubious Diablos’ tomb.
I was surprised to see Gerch approaching us at a brisk jog. He gave me a jaunty salute and turned to Emo. “They’re spread throughout the tunnels, separated into groups of four or five. Most of them are guarded by a demon handler with a ’goyle.”
Emo nodded and turned to me. “You might want to call Prince Dialle. I think we’re gonna need him.”
Holy shit! Things must be grave if Emo was asking for Dialle.
“You mean he’s not here with Gerch?”
Emo slanted me an impatient look and walked away. “Catch up with us as soon as you’ve contacted him.”
I watched him walk away and found myself wondering if aliens had stolen my best friend and replaced him with the snarky, confident shell that looked wonderfully like Emo. However, I had it on very good authority that the alien situation was under control so I shook it off and shuffled my mental drawers.
Dialle?
The resulting silence was deafening and I began to get irritated. The damnable devil never seemed willing to show up when I needed him but he sure as Hades liked to pop in when I didn’t want him around.
Like when I was naked and dripping in the cleansing tube!
“Hello, Astra.”
I jumped, gasping. His husky voice wasn’t in my head where I’d expected it to be and his warm, fragrant breath tickled my ear.
A pair of soft lips touched the back of my neck and I stomped a foot in vexation. “You could have warned me you were there.” I turned to scowl at him. The scowl pinged off his slick, self-assured persona like oil off water.
He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close, nuzzling my nose with his lips and grinning. “Astra.”
I scowled more deeply, “What!”
“I’m here.”
“Very funny, Dialle. Come on, we have demons to vanquish and hostages to save.”
He bowed low, “As always, I’m at your service, my princess.”
“If only.” I murmured and received a sharp pinch on my butt for the remark. “Ow!”
“Show some respect, Astra,” he paused and grinned, “for your betters.”
Without looking at him I reached out and touched his shoulder with one finger, zinging him with a jolt of power that made him jump and laugh, rubbing the offended shoulder.
“Respect that!”
Not too surprisingly, the tunnels got smaller, danker and darker as we followed them. At one point they widened out considerably but the ceiling dropped down so low even I had to duck my head a little. Dialle didn’t even bother ducking, he just disappeared with a pop and shimmered to a spot farther down that was more amenable to his six-foot-three-inch height. “Show off.” I murmured, wishing he’d taken me with him.
On the tails of that wish my skin started to crawl and I was suddenly aware of a malevolent aura directly behind me. I spun to meet the threat and found myself staring at what I hoped was an Orgick, because if it wasn’t an Orgick it was one huge assed rodent.
“Oh shit!” I screamed and flung out a power arrow without thinking.
The shot went wild and hit the wall behind the enormous critter, which promptly opened its huge snout and started hissing at me through yellowed fangs that were the length of my fingers.
Watching the beast carefully, I started to back away, taking care to stay on my toes. I knew I had to wait for it to make the first move but, considering the fact that it looked exactly like a king-sized rat, right down to the twitching wet nose and hairless tail, it was all I could do not to turn and run away, screaming like a banshee. The only thing that kept me facing the thing was the knowledge that, despite its current lumbering form, the Orgick was lightning fast and would soon overtake me if I ran.
I shivered as I imagined those huge teeth sinking into my back.
The thing’s eyes glowed malevolently. I watched and waited. When it finally lunged I was ready. I sprang off my toes and did a rolling flip over its head, just narrowly missing a bone shattering whip of its disgusting tail as I landed directly behind it.
I shot a jolt of power into its back, hoping the jolt would turn its ugly heart into cinders and put me out of my misery but I must have missed the heart ’cause the thing whipped around with mind-numbing speed and snapped at me, missing my leg by mere inches with those enormous fangs.
Its foul breath washed over me and I gagged. I flipped again but the tail caught me across the midsection, throwing me to the ground about ten feet down the tunnel. I lay there for a few beats, hunched in pain and gagging. I couldn’t catch a breath to save my life. And that was exactly what I needed to do, because I was about to become Orgick kibble.
It approached with an ambling, rat-like gait and I could swear I saw a smile on its ugly, Orgick face.
Then suddenly a thin stream of power shot into the thing’s chest and it stopped. Its tail gave one agitated whoosh, slamming against the nearest cavern wall and dislodging fist sized chunks of rock for several feet along the wall.
I covered my head with my arms as one particularly large chunk of rock plummeted toward me from above.
The rock just barely missed my head and skittered away to land in front of the largest pair of green, scaly feet I’d ever seen. My eyes rose up a pulsating green chest and over a wide, fleshy mouth to a pair of bulging brown eyes. From between the wide lips a tongue flicked out, testing the air.
I followed the Orgick’s gaze and saw Dialle standing several yards away, a look of pure horror on his gorgeous face.
Still having trouble catching my breath, I initiated a trip into his mental drawers. You’ve got to be kidding me...a frog!
I felt his mental shrug. It is a childhood fear. I am mostly over it, Astra.
I glanced back to the Orgick, which looked like a giant, green frog.
Apparently not.
The thing’s tongue lashed out again and, for just a fraction of a second before the Orgick frog retracted its tongue, I saw a tiny bat struggling to get loose from the glue-like appendage. Then both tongue and bat disappeared and I grimaced.
It’s disgusting but not very scary.
I felt Dialle’s mental shrug again. You had to be there, Astra.
Yeah. I guess.
I struggled
to get to my feet. That was a big mistake. The Orgick noticed my movement out of the corner of its eye and turned back to me.
Faster than you could say “soil your knickers” the gluey tongue lashed out and encircled me, drawing me inexorably toward that wide, fleshy mouth. The thing’s breath almost made me pass out, which would certainly have made things easier for the Orgick but would have been most unfortunate for me.
I tried to pull my power forward but I needed to work too hard to keep from being pulled into that gaping maw. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to gin my power up to the level I would need to blast the Orgick to smithereens, which was my fondest wish at that moment.
I finally settled for several, quick, stinging jolts on the sticky, gooey tongue.
I could only use my fingers and my aim was off because my arms were pinned against my body from just below the shoulders to my wrists by the nasty snakelike appendage.
I managed to hit the tongue several times despite my inability to move. Each jolt caused the tongue to loosen around me but not entirely let go.
Do something, Dialle!
I’m thinking, Astra. I can’t shoot it with enough power to kill it because it would kill you too. Can you pull a power bubble around yourself?
He shot a very focused jolt of power into the thing and it flailed around a bit, taking a couple of hops toward him but it didn’t do much damage.
No. It’s too hard to concentrate. And I’m losing feeling in my arms.
The glue-like substance that coated its tongue apparently contained some kind of numbing agent. My arms and body had begun to prickle and then lose feeling, making it even harder to throw my power darts at the ugly monster.
A sudden thought occurred. Dialle, can you use your power to hold it in place?
He turned to me and a smile slowly slid into place on his face. I can do that.
I had to force my mind to continue concentrating. The sticky stuff was starting to invade my mind and I was getting woozy. I shook my head and prayed I’d have enough time to do what I needed to do. At the very least I was going to make myself taste very bitter, so if the thing ate me it would be really sorry!
