Then thick black clouds coagulated above them. Lightning flashed far and wide and filled the sky, and it lit up brightly, looking like a glowing fisherman’s net made of gold. Then Lilly and her banshees disappeared.
CH 14: Family Matters II
Ryan’s concerns were fleeting, and Mea paid them little mind. She might die, and Azazel certainly tried to make her. And according to Lilly, as far as things seemed to be going, everyone was going to die.
So, Mea sat on the couch and watched T.V. and tried to take her mind off it. No luck. How’d she do it? Mea wondered, slicing Lilly across the face, like that. Almost instinctively, the knife was in her hand and was followed by a quick up-then-down slash, and it was done. Her hand flashed like flint from a lighter, and the knife was suddenly gone—vanished.
When Lilly’s sunglasses and cheeks split open, Lilly wasn’t particularly happy about it, but shock was her initial reaction. As the slices on her cheeks widened and turned bright red, Lilly’s jaw dropped and hung open. “You cut me,” she said incredulously before pushing Mea, shoving her so hard that she flew back a good ten feet before slamming into a brick wall of the front of the school. Pain shot through her bones, and her wings begged to be released. But Mea held back. Not here, not now; too many people, too many witnesses. In the end, she wouldn’t need them. By the time she was able to blink away the pain and regained some lucidity, Lilly was gone.
Panicked and concerned for the bystanders—witnesses, Mea looked around to see if any of them had noticed, but the area seemed clear. A janitor was off to the side, standing by another set of double doors, but he was preoccupied with his sweeping and the music coming through his earbuds, and he certainly wasn’t paying her any attention. And the group of students exiting the building had glanced at her, but it was only darting interest—darting interest in the strange girl sitting alone in the grass. The kids in the parking lot, the ones Mea had just saved, were still doing what they were doing. And thanks to her, they were still alive. At the moment, it was enough.
“Hey,” Diana smiled as she flopped onto the couch next to her daughter. “What you watching?”
What was she watching? Mea had zoned out and truly had no idea. “Nothing,” said Mea as she handed the remote over to her mom.
You’re going to die, that was what Ryan said. And Mea realized that his words weren’t as fleeting as she thought. And with a sigh, she dropped her head against her mom’s damp shoulder.
Fresh out the shower, Diana’s hair was wet and smelled like strawberries. And Mea’s cheek was quickly dampened as well, and she hated the smell of strawberries, but at the moment, she didn’t seem to care about either of those issues. She just wanted to rest her head on her mom’s shoulder, regardless if it was damp or not. And with an unseen smile, Diana didn’t seem to mind too much either. With both exhausted from each of their respective hard days, mother and daughter decided to take a breather and remained silent for the time being.
But after flipping through a few channels, Diana set down the remote and began rubbing at a cut on her aged hands.
“From the dishes?” asked Mea.
“Papercut at work. The struggle is real.” She felt Mea shaking her head against her shoulder and didn’t need to look, and besides, she was too tired to move. Lazily Diana said, “What? That’s what the kids are saying nowadays, right?” It was less of a question and more of Diana embracing the generational gap between her and her daughter.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What’s wrong?”
Mea sighed before reluctantly answering with struggling words. “Nothing… It’s just… When you were younger, did you know what you wanted to do? I mean before you…” Her words trailed off before saying the heavy words she intended. Attempted suicide.
Still, Diana knew what she meant. “What did I want to be when I was younger? A nurse. Before you were born, I had a grandma I really liked, the one on my dad’s side, but she got really sick. And… when I was a little girl, I’d visit her, and I’d always see the same nurse, Nurse Harden. She was a large black lady, and I think, at first, it was just that I thought her name was funny. Harden.” She chuckled. “I don’t know; I was a kid.” Diana smiled larger as the memory became more vivid.
“Anyways, I saw the way that she took care of her, my grandma, and… taking care of people, that’s what I wanted to do.”
“What happened?”
Diana took a deep breath then continued. “Before the… You know.” Suicide attempt. “I was going to school for it, to be a nurse, but I got into an accident. I got mugged… and beaten.” Diana’s voice started to crack. “After that, life was hard. My leg was shattered. I was in constant pain and…” The traumatic memory made Diana’s face prune up and her eyes water. But just as fast as the memory hit her, she wiped at her eyes and sighed to get past it. And after a nervous chuckle, she continued with her life story while skipping over large chunks of it. “Anyways, when I woke up in that hotel room, I was healed—Somehow. My leg was all better and… the pain was gone. And when I had you—found you, everything changed. After that, I just wanted to take care of you and Ryan.” She hugged her daughter tightly. “After all that, I just wanted to be the best mother I could.”
“Yeah.” And you are, thought Mea, but now the world’s going to end.
Her mind quickly jumped towards Ryan and his eerie words. Mea knew how she got there, but what about Ryan? Was he a god too? “Hey, ma. What about Ryan?”
Diana knew what she meant and shrugged as she answered nonchalantly, “Him? Eh, some guy in Cleveland.”
Her daughter’s eyes grew big as Mea snapped upright and alertly towards her mom.
And Diana smiled and acted like it was no big deal. To her, it wasn’t. She had her two children, and that was the most important thing to her. “What?” Then Diana shrugged at her daughter. “You were gone camping with Anna—and I never said I was an angel.” She nudged her daughter and tipped her head onto her Mea’s shoulder. “Besides, you always said you wanted a little brother.”
“Yeah.” Mea leaned her head against the top of her mom’s—and atop her wet hair. And while her cheek was even wetter and the stench of strawberries was stronger than before and close to making her stomach bubble, her head still felt right where it was, where it belonged, right next to her mom’s. “Mom, do you believe in fate?”
“After what happened to me, it’s hard not to.”
“What if it’s bad?” The Cleansing, they’re coming.
“Well… again, after what happened to me, it’s hard to think like that. I got a second chance. I was blessed, and I’m sure that I didn’t deserve it. But… here I am; here we are. Fate, destiny… they’re double-edged swords. People use them as… They’re just words, and they can either be used as an excuse or a challenge. And people have always used them to justify doing whatever it is that they wanted to do in the first place. It’s fate. It’s destiny, they say. Any which way, I think we’re all just doing the best we can. And Mea, just remember: there are always more good people in the world than bad... And fate and destiny are just words until you give them meaning.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Ma.” Mea finally lifted up her head, and she wiped off her cheek. And she finally looked up at the television—it was an infomercial for some gadget used for chopping vegetables. Mea wrinkled up her eyebrows and forehead something fierce, and she said, “Mom, what the hell are we watching?”
CH 15: Gang Related
Feeding the homeless left a bad taste in his mouth, and Fenrir felt disenfranchised. The sun had fallen, and the homeless had scattered, and Fenrir sagged, seated on the concrete slope where he had been. And no longer crowded by the homeless herds, he was now surrounded by six blurred faces. “Lilith was correct,” Fenrir told his pack. “The mortals have lost their way. They have forgotten the old ways. We should not have come so far south, not so soon.
“Money, paper… that is their god now. They horde it in buildings and keep it written in paper ledg
ers. Watching it constantly—worshipping it. And then, they go about churning their fingers at useless tasks to make more of it. For what?
“Once, they used gold and precious metals for wealth. And while the humans still horded it, the hoarders often met sharp blades when the masses went without. But now… paper shields have replaced good sense and humanity.”
So Fenrir and his six faceless followers left. Under the dark sky, seven wolves, one with frosted blue eyes, raced across the dusty desert. Natives and night watchers reported seeing shadows with glowing eyes, saw them galloping through the darkness, hardly believing it themselves. But while the paw prints and claw marks they left were real enough, they would wash away with the rising sun.
As they galloped through the desert, a whisper drew Fenrir’s attention and he steered right, somewhere between Nevada and Idaho. Whispers. Drunken whispers and thoughts of a painful life, everything muddled into something barely coherent inside his head. Prayers. Regardless of the jumbled cypher, Fenrir was able to make out three words: Wolf, spirit, and help.
The sun hid behind red mountains and would paint the sky red and the clouds orange when day broke. But that was still hours away. At the moment, persistent stars littered the night’s sky. The ground was yellow and orange with deep cracks and red dirt.
Eventually the desert gave way to metal and electricity. Dirt roads. Rusted cars and trucks. An old diner. And Fenrir slowed down, shifted into his mortal form. His pack became seven sets of footprints them spread out, away from Fenrir. Fenrir himself, he continued his journey. Passing by some piles of junk, some mobile homes that had seen better days, and the fleeting gazes of a few late night passerbies; Fenrir followed the whispers inside his head.
Looking down on a young man that was half-nodding his head, Fenrir stopped. “Boy,” he said.
The once good-looking–but now unshaven and shaggy–man of twenty-three wheeled around his wheelchair. His skin was dark and his hair was coarse and black as night. His face was unimpressed and alcohol was on his breath and seeping out of his pores. He looked up at the giant wolf-god. Lingering on Fenrir, he finally spoke, still unimpressed. “What? What do you want?”
Fenrir’s nostrils flared and his eyes sparkled like sapphires. But he wasn’t angry nor insulted, not yet. He’s just a boy, Fenrir thought. The man was barely one—more of a boy, hairy but with a youthful face. A patterned blanket was on his lap and was draped over the armrests of his wheelchair. The blanket appeared to be Native American, most likely Navajo. Fenrir spotted the pile of beer bottles next to the boy, and he was beginning to understand the boy’s drunken defiance.
“Do you know me, boy? Do you know why I am here?” Fenrir asked as his followers emerged from the desert mists and stepped behind the wheelchair. Their footsteps ground into the dirt, and the boy in the wheelchair turned his head slightly before resisting the urge to see who was there. Screw ‘em, whoever they were. He studied Fenrir as if he almost knew him.
The boy in the wheelchair remained unimpressed and forced himself to hold onto his anger, but his curiosity was still piqued. “Skin walker?”
Fenrir scratched his beard and nodded. “Aye, that is one name, but I am Fenrir. The Wolf. A god.”
“A god? The Wolf-God? Well, I’d stand to salute you but…” He pulled away the blanket on his lap and waved at his non-existent legs. “Oh, I can’t.” The boy huffed angrily—angry at the world, at God, at the gods, and angry at everyone else. He grasped at his chest. “Here, Wolf. Have some dog tags.” Yanking them off his neck, he flung them at Fenrir. “Dogs, wolves; same thing, right?”
Fenrir gave a short wave of his hand to settle his pack then chuckled. “You mortals, so bold. You curse the gods, you praise the gods, whatever suits your purposes.” He picked up the dog tags at the foot of his black armored boot and gave them a look. “Do you know where the use of dog tags originated from… boy?” The blank look on the boy’s face gave him his answer. So Fenrir continued, “The practice started in Rome. They were called signaculums back then, and they were no more than a lead disk and a leather rope, that’s all they were.” Fenrir continued examining the dog tags, flipping them over then running his fingers over the raised aluminum bumps of letters and numbers. The boy began squirming but held back from asking for them back. And Fenrir grinned, knowing that the boy was getting irritated about him handling something that was so intimate to him. Ignoring it, Fenrir continued with his lesson. “The Roman legionnaires used to carry them around. And do you know why?”
This time, the boy knew the answer. “To identify the bodies. If someone died, they’d use the tags to identify the corpse.”
Fenrir wrinkled his forehead and nodded happily. “Aye, but that wasn’t the only reason. The tags were originally used to not only identify the bodies but to ensure a proper burial as well, according to one’s beliefs. These things are important.” Fenrir looked at the dog tags one last time before tossing them back at the boy. “You dropped these… Alec Grayson.”
Pausing momentarily, Fenrir growled then continued speaking. “And dogs are not wolves. You should know better, Grayson.” He pointed to the tattoo on Alec’s shoulder. It was a cartoonish bulldog with “Devil Dog” written beneath it, a symbol for the U.S. Marines Corps. Almost ashamed that he was ashamed, Alec skittishly pulled down his shirt sleeve to conceal the tattoo. “Sorry, about calling your wolves dogs. They are not the same.”
Fenrir nodded at the show of humility. “Grayson? Hmm, that’s an interesting name, an interesting name for your tribe.”
Alec was still focused on his dog tags, and rubbed his fingers along the stamped metal of them, glad to have them back but still trying to hide his emotions.
Though heavy emotions, they were. Alec had lost more than just his legs. Without his legs, he was no longer a Marine, no longer a fighter. And looking around the junk and trailers about the desert reservation, he also saw his future, a much different future than the one he imagined. Sticking his dog tags into his pocket and with a sigh, he answered Fenrir, “My grandfather said it was originally Gray Skin, or Gray Stone, or something like that. It always depends on how drunk he is.”
Fenrir took in his surroundings. Mostly trailers and track houses, some poorly kept. Others had stacks of trash piled beside them; a few others had broken down cars outside them; Alec’s had a rusted truck on the side, and behind it was a beat-up swing set—a swing set that was one swing short and had a cracked plastic slide. “Your people were once great warriors.”
“Once, a long time ago… But arrows and spears don’t do too good against bullets and cannons.”
“Aye, but there is little honor in guns and bullets. Effective tools, but no honor in them. Taking life should not be so easy. It emboldens cowards and kills the courageous.”
Alec rubbed at the top part of his thigh, what was left of it, and scratched at the scarred skin beneath his blue jeans. “Well, they work well enough, don’t they? Maybe disease-covered blankets are more your flavor? Are those any more honorable? But, hey…” Alec opened his arms wide. “Look what honor gives you.” He wiggled the nubs that replaced of his legs.
Fenrir nodded and scratched his beard again. Diseased blankets, he knew what Alec meant. When the Europeans came over and settled on North America, some gave blankets infected with European diseases to the Native Americans. Them, with no natural immunities to the European diseases, died horribly as the viruses ravaged their bodies. Fenrir pursed his lips with empathy. “That time… Aye, there was no honor in that, and no doubt it was a hard lesson. You curse your ancestors, but they learned from that—though a difficult and different lesson, it was. A man can only protect what he can hold. And of that, he can only protect it for a time.”
“And the Europeans? Or the rich and famous? Where is their lesson? What lesson did they learn?”
“In time, it is a lesson we all learn. Ask a man, graying and wrinkled and who whispers to death, of lessons. What can he protect? Can his broken hands hold a gun or de
fend his family? Age makes mortals of us all, even the strong and even the rich.” He looked at the man’s stumps. “And yet, despite your defiant words, you fought to protect the ideals and flag of this nation, the same one you now curse.”
“Yeah, dumb idea. Joined the Marines, fought some foreign war, and this was all I got, some stumps… And a government check each month. They might as well say, Thanks for your legs. Bu-bye.”
“You lie to yourself. You fought because you are a warrior. Warriors search for battle. They relish in the preparation, they relish in the competition and in standing with other warriors, and then they appreciate when it is over.”
Saliva sprayed from Alec’s mouth as he yelled in frustration and anger. “Does it look like I’m appreciating anything? I fought, and I lost my legs. A roadside bomb took my legs, and now…”
“And yet you live. In the past, you would have died, but not right away. It would have been a painful death filled with fever and infection.” The god took a heavily mailed knee and got himself eye-level with the boy. “You can curse the gods, curse man, curse the world. But the world is as it is. Fair and unfair alike.”
Alec turned away; hurt, angry, ashamed, and fighting back tears.
“But I did not come here to discuss the atrocities committed by mortals. That is a conversation that could last twice as long as the acts themselves.” The sound of Fenrir scratching his beard brought Alec’s eyes back up to Fenrir’s own. Tonguing at the bottom row of his teeth, Fenrir contemplated his next move.
Then he didn’t. Remaining on bent knee, he shrugged lightheartedly and said, “Regardless, I am not here for you, not exactly. I am here because of your grandfather. He prays loudly, too loud—with pain and empathy and too often.” Wolf Spirit, relieve my grandson of his anguish; allow me to take it, if you will. For I am old, and he is young. My errors are many, and his are not. This I pray to you, Wolf Sprit. Fenrir smirked then said, “Loudly and often, he prays… and selflessly and generously, he prays. So… I came.”
The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2) Page 16
