With her back towards him, he could hear whimpering and see her shoulders bouncing lightly. She’s crying, he knew. “Mea, please. I’m just…
“Useless as tits on a boar.” She snickered and turned around towards him. Apparently, she wasn’t crying. Trying to talk through her laughter, she playfully waved her hand in the air, as if trying to slap away her giggles. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just, I just heard it somewhere and always thought it was funny.” It was Anna. Through their entire friendship, Anna always said it. Any time Mea did something goofy, Anna would hook her arm around Mea’s neck and yell, “Cheese and rice, you’re useless as tits on a boar.” Then they’d laugh, and the world would fade away to background noise. But not anymore, Anna was dead.
Raven smiled at her corny joke and moved closer. “Yeah, I guess so, useless as tits on a boar.”
Hearing him say it made she start snickering all over again. Tits on a boar. Nasally, she snorted as she continued laughing, and soon, both her snorts and laughs were completely intermingled. Finally, most of it passed and after a deep breath, she was almost calm again.
“You know, you’re going to be okay, right? You know that, right?” Raven said, still trying to comfort her. But it was a lie, and Raven knew it. None of them were going to be alright, especially him.
“Yeah, I know.” Another lie. Mea wasn’t laughing anymore. Her shoulders slumped, and her hazel eyes were heartbreaking.
“Did you need some time? I can leave if…”
Mea sniffed away some snot and wiped her eyes. “No, ah... You can stay up here if you want to. But I got to go in. And I’d…” The way he looked at her gave her pause. She never knew if he was really looking at her or just looking at the ghost from his past. So far, she had been too scared to ask or to even breach the subject. This time was no different. “No, I like having you watch over me, watching over my family. It’s nice.” She steadied her breathing. “And I’d invite you in but…”
He smiled. “But I’m a brooding creature from the underworld that’s neither dead or alive… that escaped from Hell and never sleeps.”
“Yeah, that.” Mea flared out her arms. “And I’m an ancient god with a crappy memory.”
Raven watched her leave before stepping away. To himself, he smirked and shook his head. Maybe I’m not useless as tits on a boar, he thought. Still smiling as he entered the shadows, he shifted into his true skin. Ink dripped out of the shadows and clung to him like wet paint. Coating his clothes and skin, the liquid darkness took shape and molded itself into a familiar form and hardening into the glossy black armor he had become so used to. His broadsword and scabbard came to life in the darkness as purple, black, and storm-gray shadows swirled over his shoulders and coagulated along his spine. His hands darkened and elongated into his char-colored claws. Forcing a smile, he felt more comfortable in this skin, his true skin…. The skin of a monster.
He squatted down on his familiar perch, a partly chipped brick ledge at the corner of the building, a floor above Mea’s room. From there, he watched over the Harris family until the sun rose. He knew all too well about the evils that lurked in the shadows.
His brief moment of zen was interrupted. While he didn’t eat, the hunger gnawed at Raven, growing more ravenous by the day. His usually steady claw shook. It’s worse than it was, worse than last time; he thought. He squeezed it tightly and dug his talons into itself—like a person digging their fingernails into their palm. The pain would stop the hunger, he hoped. It wouldn’t, and Raven found himself lying to himself again. One of many.
CH 3: Bad Moon Rising / Santa Monica
Gusts of wind blew ice crystals across the snow-crusted tundra, and stiff stalks of grass were sprinkled across it. Almost lifeless and untouched by man, the rich soil slept beneath the snow and frozen leaves.
Behind it was a vast forest. The rigid pillars of bark were thick and tall and reached towards the heaven with their naked branches. The weaker ones were broken, shattered, and splintered on the ground and covered in powder. Others were coated in ice or served as stems for icicles.
The Northern region of the Russian territory, along the Northern Circle, was not a place for weakness, weakness was not allowed. The world was cold and brutal. And up here, it was worse than most. And the weak always died, usually first and often quickly.
The sun fell against the thin and frozen sky before taking shelter from the even colder night. Moonlight replaced sunlight, and tonight, the Earth’s dusty, pale sidekick seemed larger than most any other night before. The bright white orb seemed almost close enough to grab.
The oversized moon wasn’t alone. As it shone brightly amidst the black nightline, it was surrounded by lively fields of sparkling stars. And not surprisingly, the sky was more alive than the tundra. Stars blinked and exploded. A meteor shower wiped away the darkness, if not for a moment. Then the moon turned red.
Gently dimming and darkening, the moon ripened into the gentle red of an unripe tomato before plumping into a cherry red one before finishing in a dark and darker hue of crimson; the blood moon had arrived and began to stir.
It wasn’t alone. Deep within the forest, something else stirred. As the earth shook, thick trees began to shake before exploding like popcorn and bursting into each other; filling the air with split lumber, course spears with splintered ends, shattered bark, and toothpick-sized slivers.
Whispers followed. Paper shields tattooed with fake laws… Cowards behind wooden desks, cloaked in sheep fur, wool… They’ve lost their way… We will show them… show them fear, that fear is strength... Cull the herd for those that live… Feast and feed on the monsters masked as men… Consume them, cleanse them… The old ways must be respected. We will teach them… They will learn, or they will die… It’s the law of the land, the law of the flesh, our law… Show them, protect them… Through death and pain, we will show them… No more falsehoods… Build the pack, strong souls and weak flesh… Weak as men, strong as wolves… They will learn; they will see…
The wind stirred and swirled. Tornados of wood, snow, and dirt danced through the naked forest. Then, before one tornado eventually jerked to a halt—as if it chained to the earth, it sucked in heaps of broken branches and weakly rooted trees then sucked in more debris. The swirling white winds of the tornado grew dark—then black—with debris and nature. Angrier and denser, it began shrinking, all the while growing darker, denser, and more brutal.
As the wind stilled, the debris dissolved into a mold of muddy leaves and twigs. “Huh.” A gruff voice grunted from within. Then, pushing his way out of the mound, a man rose from his bent knee. Clad in thick armor, his polished black plates were edged in silver. His hands were thick and meaty. His left clenched onto a three-pronged trident that he used to pushed away more of the frozen mulch. He thumped the bottom of his trident against the frozen dirt and frost beneath his feet, knocking away the chunks of mulch caught between the trident’s thick blades; long, flat, and thick they were—like a three-headed dragon that had been forged and fastened in black steel.
His nose flared and sucked in a deep breath of frozen air, as the red light of the blood moon shined brightly against the thin silver lining of his collar and the man’s bristled, hard face.
Over his back was a thick cloak made of oily black fur, from an over-sized wolf from ancient times. Its fangs were fastened around his collar and kept the heavy fur in place. The skin and fur of it were thick and made for winters—old winters. Once, the world was cold, all of it, so very cold. It was nice, he thought. He exhaled a puff of warm fog before slapping the trident under his cloak and against his back. Oddly enough, it stuck right where he had slapped it and now, the three large prongs lied perched behind his head like a gaudy three-pronged crown of blades. I am no king, he thought.
I am a killer. He looked down and smiled at what was in his right hand, another polearm. The shaft was charred oak strengthened by titanium strips. Intricate patterns were engraved in both the metal and the lumber, done
as much for aesthetics as it was to feel the notches beneath his fingertips.
Lifting the blade out of the ground, dirt and ice slid off the black blade of the glaive. The blade itself was wide, dark, razor-sharp, and brutal, just like the man holding it.
His face was cold and brutal as well. His thick mane matched his beard—both streaked in coarse black, gray, and white strands. Stroking his chin, the thick wizard’s beard shortened into a masculine, well-groomed, more modern –looking goatee. Running his palm over his hair, it thinned into a shoulder-length mane of greasy streaks of black, gray, and white. He was a tough old man, tough but still old… And his face showed it.
He finally opened his eyes, revealing a majestic set of icy blue sapphires that glowed in the bloody moonlight. He gazed out over what was left of the forest and the tundra.
“It’s time,” he growled. “Our sleep has been disturbed. And now… Now it is time.” It was a deep and strong voice, gravelly.
“We will cleanse this world.” He turned towards the blood moon. His eyes flashed bright blue, and the blood moon was drained of its color.
He scanned over the forest again. This time, he saw something; a flurry of yellow lights swaying gently from side to side. He wasn’t alone, not any more. The swaying yellow lights, yellow eyes, grew larger and came near. Wolves? Men? Galloping through the woods and disappearing and reappearing from behind the half-uprooted trees and the ones that were strong enough to still be standing, it was hard to tell what they were, man or beast.
A wolf needs a pack. The wolves leapt over the broken wood and over the stumps before six stepped forward—well, five men and one woman. Dressed like the man and holding similar yet smaller glaives, they came nearer. And he smiled and nodded softly to them, as they responded with stern nods. With heavy steps, leaves and ice crunched loudly beneath their feet as they neared the Wolf.
Eventually the crunching stopped as they did as well. Circling the Wolf in equal distances, he addressed his pack. “We will restore the natural order, for seven are one.”
“And one is seven,” they chanted.
As the men and woman moved even closer to their leader with each putting their hands on one another’s armored shoulders, the moon cast a dark nasty shadow over them. The shadow of the seven grew tall and blended into one massive cloud of darkness sprawled across the shimmering snow. Their glaives and the one trident tilted outwards. Seven heads, and their glaives and the Wolf’s trident appeared as ten horns, and the scattered limbs of what remained of the shattered forest cast smoky shadows upon the beast and created a lightly shaded crown for each of its horns. Seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns.
They spoke in one tongue and one voice. “Seven are one, and the one is seven. Come and see.”
Elsewhere in the world, across ice and ocean, the Pacific Ocean crashed against littered sand. Salt swooshed against the beach as dirt-brown seaweed and the man-trash washed ashore while other bits of trash washed away. And tonight, the ocean was greedy. It continued stealing driftwood, seaweed, and trash from the salty sands with every crashing wave while depositing less-and-less with the next one.
Tonight, it would appear that it was also generous as well. In the distance, above the vast ocean, the sky stirred. Clouds grew in size and quantity before thickened into dark pools of silver-lined darkness. Lightning flashed silently, absent any thunder. Again, it flashed. Then again. Each strike brighter and larger than the one before. Then they quickened. Soon the dark cloud was nothing but a tangled golden web of flashing electricity. Then, as if sent from the gods themselves, lightning strikes exploded into the ocean. The wrath of God? Or was it the gods’ wrath. With each strike, salt water exploded out of the ocean and through the air.
Quickening further, the lightning strikes became so frequent and intense that night became like the day. Within the dark cloud, winged shadows darted and dove about. And with every flash of light, the shadows multiplied. Five turned to ten, then ten turned to twenty, and on and on and on. Like a swarm of gnats, they filled the sky as the lightning continued lighting up the black clouds and snapping at the ocean.
Then everything changed. The lightning died out. The clouds dissipated. The crashing waves on the shore simmered and quieted. And the dashing shadows were gone, as well.
The tide calmed further, and the ocean waves seemed to all but disappear. For a moment, the vicious Pacific Ocean seemed no more dangerous than a peaceful rural lake. Seconds later, the waves stirred once again, but this time… This time, they were moving in reverse and away from each other, like the ocean was being drained. Jellyfish, seaweed, and smaller fish floundered on the newly revealed sand. As the ocean receded further, the waves began to crash into and onto themselves until they became giant walls of salt water, and the restless ocean pulled back into a long thin corridor. And even further out into the ocean, the corridor narrowed further and the wall grew taller. Now standing as tall as skyscrapers, the towering walls of thrashing saltwater lined the sandy path. Where it led, no one knew. “Come and see,” the ocean seemed to whisper, a whisper to any and all who might hear its call.
The words reached the ears of a homeless couple who were sprawled across the closed beach and eastern of the spectacle. Come and see. Both drunk, they figured why not and stumbled closer.
The man wasn’t sure if he was really seeing what he was seeing. Dropping his bag, his jaw dropped like a jagged drawbridge of teeth as he limped closer to the road of sand that was suddenly carved in the ocean. Too far to see, something stirred from far down the hall between the tall saltwater walls. Come and see.
The voice seemed to be more inside his head than it was audible. Come and see. He wanted to, but as he squinted through old and abused eyes, seeing was easier said than done. Still, it beckoned him. Come and see. Seeing only blurs, he figured, sure, why not. Then he stumbled even nearer.
His female companion was less impressed. Lagging behind, she saw the man drop his bag and she knew what was in it, $253 in cash. A homeless drunk or not, Maurice had plans. And apparently, so did Denise. So as Maurice stumped closer to the ocean, Denise crept closer to and into his bag. And in their own ways, both were experiencing a miracle. And although Denise’s miracle was certainly less miraculous than Maurice’s, $253 would be enough to get her through the night and get to a real miracle, a miracle sold in baggies and smoked in glass pipes.
All the while, Maurice was oblivious. His head was swimming in alcohol, and at the moment, he didn’t know nor care what Denise was doing. Lifting a crinkled brown bag to his lips, he swigged the last of his rotgut whiskey and let the bag and bottle drop from his hand. Still staring at the ocean, he flopped down in the sand next to it. Still staring, but either forgetting or double checking, he put his lips to the glass bottle in the brown bag again and shook out whatever drops of alcohol were left. And this time, he knew it was real and empty and tossed it away in frustration.
“Hey, Denise. Come and see this,” he called for the woman, his eyes never leaving the sandy corridor or walls of waves. But watching the swaying walls of water and the corridor of sand, his eyes grew heavy. The whiskey was winning. “Denise, you gotta… You got to…” His battered liver wasn’t filtering the alcohol fast enough, and he was starting to feel it. His eyelids were anvils—too heavy to hold up. Seconds later, sleep took him as he passed out in the sand. Come and see.
Denise didn’t fare any better. As she found the cash in a poorly-hidden hidden compartment, she grinned with big yellow teeth. I was just looking for a cigarette, that was what she was going to tell Maurice if he caught her. But he hadn’t. Barely noticing that her boyfriend was a collapsed puddle in the sand, after a glance, she stumbled further away from the beach.
She tried to. Arms flailing as she took sloppy steps, a spear of light shot past her, through her. After a gasp, she fell into the sand just as Maurice had, but unlike Maurice, she had Maurice’s money. And right now, his $253 was clenched in her paralyzed hand.
In his dru
nken slumber, Maurice the homeless man ended up missing the once-in-a-lifetime event. Drifting down the salty corridor, a tidal wave of scarlet waves flowed, bubbling, and sparkling over the once-drowned sand. Then the waves slowed and settled as they shined brighter and cast their own shadows. They weren’t waves; they were ribbons. Reeling themselves in like floppy measuring tapes, the scarlet rivers shortened, flapping over thin pillars of sapphires, rubies, emerald and diamonds. Then, the glistening red curtains wiped the jewels away and revealed a thin layer of sun-kissed skin and a mane of golden waves atop the woman’s head. Before long, the red rivers shrank and folded in on themselves before swirling and wrapped around the woman’s wrists and up her arms. Barefoot in a silky-black nightgown, she looked magical. Stepping forward, the walls of water collapsed behind her but dared not splash her. And as her tiny polished feet stepped onto the beach, the ocean waves washed away her sins—if she had any—along with her entrance into the world. Come and see.
Her legs shimmered as she stepped over to the homeless man. Her silky lips spoke satin words. “Bear witness and behold your queen.” His lips were not so silky and instead covered with dried skin and edged with white crusty flakes. She huffed, “You are a sad witness, truly.” But she wasn’t without sympathy, and she sucked her bottom lip as she began feeling sorry for him. She pitied him. “The gods are cruel,” she whispered.
The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2) Page 8
