Satan's Sword Read online

  I looked at him with big, sad eyes. “You’d forbid me my wings? Deny me flight?”

  He winced. It was a low blow. Angels were particularly fond of their wings.

  “I don’t have time for this. Who knows what you’ll do next?”

  “Fair warning, I think the gate guardians are going to unionize. You didn’t forbid me from encouraging fair labor practices, so you should overlook that one.”

  He motioned with his hands, as if he were trying to restrain himself from tearing me limb from limb.

  “You are driving me insane. What am I supposed to do with you? You have got to be the worst, most disruptive thing that has ever happened to me in all my life.”

  “Just ignore me,” I told him. “I was here more than forty years before you recognized me; it’s not going to be the end of the world if you just let me do my thing.”

  “I can’t ignore you. You have a part of me lodged inside yourself. I honestly think you’re doing this stuff on purpose to irritate me. It’s like having someone constantly pestering you, poking you, yanking on your hair for attention.”

  “Well you’re the stupid idiot who put a chunk of yourself inside a demon. I know you were angry, blah, blah, blah, but you’re smart enough to know that you were giving me a portion of your spirit. This whole thing is your fault, not mine.”

  He stared at me in disbelief. “I didn’t give a part of myself to you, you took it. I blaze a trail into your spirit to create the bind, and then pull back. I’ve done it thousands of times without ever having this happen. I didn’t think it was even possible. You seized hold and kept that portion. There was no way I could remove it.”

  He had to be lying. I’ll admit I’ve grabbed some demons before, when they’ve gotten their personal energy too close. I devoured them, killed them. I didn’t break off a piece and embed it in an awkward network throughout myself. He fucked up, and he was blaming it on me.

  “I’ve been trying ever since to take it back, but you won’t let it go. I’m older than you by billions of years, I’m infinitely more powerful, but I can’t seem to break myself free from you. A lowly, inept, baby demon. Nothing but a dirty, nasty, foul, despised cockroach.”

  I knew he didn’t exactly have a high opinion of my status and power, but this was really insulting and it stung. I didn’t want this shit inside me. He was welcome to it. If he was going to be mean, he could just fuck off. Let him pretend I was some greedy bitch, snatching his spirit and hogging it to myself. Whatever. Asshole.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “So sorry your ineptitude in binding me caused all this trouble. If I’m so lowly and foul, then how could I possibly seize a portion of a majestic, god-like creature such as yourself?”

  He inhaled sharply, but I wasn’t done yet. “Know what? I don’t want your shit. It’s a stupid color, it doesn’t compliment my own hue one bit, and I hate lugging it around. It stinks, too. Now fuck off and let me finish my run.”

  I pushed away from the tree to move past him only to be slammed against it again as his mouth covered mine. Normally, I’d be all up for a little nookie against a tree, but it was clear right away that this was not a kiss of passion. I felt a sharp painful ripping inside me, more agonizing than anything I’d felt before. The fucker was trying to kill me.

  I blasted him as hard as I could. Threw a stream of raw energy at him that should have burned him all the way through. It didn’t disintegrate him, but it did knock him backward a few feet, safely away from me.

  “I’ll fight you with every last thing I’ve got if you try that again,” I told him. “Even if you succeed in killing me, the amount of raw energy I have will explode out of me with a vengeance. I hope it fucking kills you, too, you asshole.”

  He glared at me in silence.

  “Let me know if you think up anything to get this shit out of me. Anything that doesn’t involve killing me, that is. I want it out of me worse than you do. I want it out and gone. In the meantime, just go the fuck away.”

  I jogged past him and down the road which was getting blurry before my eyes. He’d tried to kill me. Really kill me. After that morning in my house, after the tucking into bed and the sandwich, I thought. . . Ah, it didn’t matter what I’d thought. Candy was right, I needed to stop this now and stay away from him.

  Chapter 15

  >Michelle came over late that evening to help me figure out an appropriate Halloween costume for Wyatt’s and my big night at Bang. I wasn’t into it, but didn’t have the heart to cancel on her. She was so psyched and had brought over Chinese takeout.

  Hunan bean curd usually brightened any mood, but I kept mulling over my day, mulling over all the shit I’d thrown up in the air, as Dar had said. Dar’s dilemma, Haagenti’s inevitable punishment, the damned sword I was supposed to retrieve. Spending a fortune on a money-pit shopping center. The humans insisting that I needed to save them from a killer. A little boy’s dark eyes popped up from my memory and I quickly banished the image. Stupid humans.

  Then there was the conversation with the gate guardian, the vials of elf blood on my bedroom dresser, Gregory trying to kill me. Was he really bound to me? Between that and the part of him permanently lodged inside me, no wonder he was homicidal. Not that I had any idea how to utilize a bound angel. We didn’t bind other beings, we Owned them. Angels bound.

  “Are you okay?” Michelle asked as I displayed various skin colors and horn types for her critique. “You seem distracted. Did you and Wyatt have a fight?”

  “No, for once Wyatt and I are fine. My brother from back home is in a bit of trouble and I’m trying to bail him out.”

  Michelle nodded knowingly. “I’ve got five siblings. I know how wrapped up you can get in their problems. Still, family is family and it’s important to be there for them.”

  “Yeah, but I’m going to get the shit beat out of me for protecting him. I’m not looking forward to that,” I told her. “What about these horns?”

  “I like the ram-type ones that curled down better. I think you’re less likely to snag them on the decorations.” She walked around me to see them from the back. “My brothers were always taking the fall for each other. I think it’s nice that you’re sticking up for him. I didn’t expect a demon to do that.”

  Me either.

  “Had an angel try to kill me today, too. That sort of ruined my mood. How about a tail?”

  Michelle didn’t seem fazed by my announcement. “Yeah, that would bum me out, too.” She looked at the tail. “Try shorter.”

  “Then I somehow got roped into protecting that little kid in the apartment on Clive Street from a ghostly cat that shoves his actions figures in the toilet and some guy that wants to cut off his ears.”

  “The little Perez boy? He is awfully cute. Wait,” she looked up, a frown on her face. “They’re not supposed to have pets in that unit. Did you say they had a cat?”

  “It’s a ghost. Don’t get your panties in a knot.”

  Reassured that no one was violating the pet clause in their lease, Michelle turned her attention back to my tail. “How about really short? So it won’t drag on the ground?”

  “I don’t do a tail at home, so I’m not used to it. I’m afraid I’m going to get it stepped on or whack someone with it. Maybe I’ll skip the tail and go with the wings and horns instead?”

  Michelle considered the tail again. “Yeah, and the spikes at the end are probably not a good idea at a crowded party anyway. Let’s see the wings.”

  Wings. I’d already gotten in trouble doing wings. Might as well have a repeat performance.

  “How about these?” I manifested the huge bat wings and odd body structure I’d used to fly down the Potomac River. It was suddenly cramped in my living room. I shifted a few inches and knocked over a lamp.

  Michelle looked horrified. “Sweet Mary and Joseph, you look hideously deformed. Can you make your body look more normal, and reduce the size of your wings by maybe ninety percent? You’ll never fit in the doorway with those things.
”

  “But if I reduce them and change my torso back I won’t be able to get off the ground,” I complained. “All those paintings and statues? They’re bullshit. No way could those creatures even glide down safely from a cliff. Physics doesn’t work that way.”

  “You don’t need to actually fly. You’re going to be at a party. Think of them more as accessories. Like a handbag or earrings.”

  I shifted the accessories in question, knocking another lamp over. It rolled off the end table and onto the floor.

  “I’m philosophically opposed to wearing non-functional wings. What if I need to make a quick get away? Or someone throws me off the roof?”

  “Wyatt is going to puke if you look like that.” Michelle picked up the lamp and tucked it safely under the table. “And even if you fold them, you’re not going to fit in the room with those things the size they are. Come on Sam, it’s just a costume. For a party. You can fly around with your freakishly deformed body afterward if it makes you feel any better.”

  “Fine.” I reduced the wings and returning my body to its previous human shape.

  “What do you think?” I modeled the form. I was a latte color with curved ram’s horns, red eyes with slitted pupils, furry lower half with goats legs and hooves, and my beautiful bat-like wings.

  “Are you ok walking upright with your legs and feet like that?” Michelle scrutinized the odd angle.

  “Yeah, I’ve used these legs at home.”

  “Do you look like this there?”

  “No, this would be pretty boring in Hel,” I confessed. “It’s not like I can do my first form or anything dramatic here and get away with it. Plus, I really wouldn’t be able to drive in most of the forms I use at home. As it is, I’ll need to do the wings and feet when I get there.”

  “Wyatt could drive,” Michelle suggested.

  “Nope. No one is allowed to drive my car.” Wyatt had once this past summer, but only because Gregory threw him the keys and gated me away before I could protest. It would take a real emergency for me to turn over the keys to my Corvette.

  “What does your first form look like?” Michelle asked. “Can you show it to me?”

  I popped quickly into the shape. It felt so familiar and comfortable. When we are created, we are gifted a form from the parent shaping us. We immediate assume this form since we must always have a corporeal shape to exist. Our first hundred years are spent like that, until we have the skill to modify it significantly or assume another.

  “Wow.” Michelle circled me to get the full effect. “Can I touch you?”

  “You can touch the scales, but not the spikes. They’re poisonous,” I told her wordlessly.

  Michelle gasped and held her head. “I didn’t know you could do telepathy.”

  “I can’t read your thoughts, and you lack the skill to speak to me without your voice. This is the only way I can speak to you in this form though.” I laughed and the sound came out a raspy click.

  Michelle ran her hands over the scales, avoiding the spikes and small tufts of hair that dotted my form. She worked her way around to my front and looked at my three heads, touching the scales on one cheek and gently running a finger down a fang.

  “So smooth, so sharp,” she mused. “The scales are such a pretty red-orange.”

  “Wow,” I heard from the doorway. I swiveled one of my giant heads around to see Wyatt, open mouthed, his eyes roving down my long form. “Is that what you’re going as? I’ll need to strap you to the top of the Suburban like a dead deer. I don’t even think you’ll fit into the horse trailer.”

  “No, I’m going as something more manageable. Michelle wanted to see my first form.”

  Wyatt approached with an amazed look on his face. He didn’t seem to notice that I’d spoken to him without using a voice. He reached out a hand and I cautioned him silently about the spikes.

  “Which head should I talk to?” He looked from one head to the other.

  “It doesn’t matter, they’re all me. Of course, when in doubt, you should always choose the middle one.”

  He rubbed me all over, tugging slightly at the tufts of fur. His caresses felt good. I wanted to purr.

  “Your scales are smooth like glass,” he admired. “They’re reddish in places, too. And I really like the furry tufts.”

  He traced a scale with his finger. “You’re beautiful like this, Sam.”

  His words hit me hard and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. He thought I was beautiful like this? A three headed, scaled monster, with stubby legs, and bits of blue fur? This was the form I’d been given at birth. The form I’d worn for hundreds of years. A human thought me beautiful. My human thought me beautiful.

  They both stepped back and I popped into the shape that was to be my Halloween costume.

  “This is what I’m going as for Halloween,” I told Wyatt. “Do you want me to try anything different?”

  “No, I like it a lot.” He looked me over.

  “Wanna hit that furry ass?” I teased, wiggling my rear at him. He laughed.

  “I’d want to shave it first. Maybe I should stock up on razors for after the party. It’s likely to take more than one to get through that.”

  “You may need clippers,” I warned him.

  Michelle gathered up her belongings.

  “I’m outta here girlfriend,” she told me. “My work here is done. Score one for the Halloween costume.”

  “Thanks for helping me.” I gave her a hug. My ram horns whacked her in the head, and she clearly didn’t know how to hug me in return, with the wings occupying most of my back.

  “Thank you for sharing your magic with me, Sam. I never thought in my life I’d be helping a demon with a Halloween costume, petting her scales, and eating Lo Mein.”

  Michelle headed out and I popped back into my Samantha Martin shape. Which, of course, was naked, from my conversion.

  Wyatt helped himself to the leftover Lo Mein and bean curd. “Amber is going to be so jealous. She’s wanted to go to the Halloween party at Bang for years. I’ll have to send her pictures.”

  “What’s she like, your sister?” I asked on impulse.

  He had told me a few things here and there about his family, but not much. It was hard to relate, and honestly I never cared about human childhoods or family relationships. They were complicated and boring. I suddenly wanted to know more about Wyatt’s family. What was he like when he was little? Did his sister steal his toys, melt them, and hang them from the rafters? Did she impale durfts on his spikes where he couldn’t reach them? Or leave him in the woods for a week tied to a log?

  Wyatt looked surprised at the unexpected question and sat down on a chair at the dining table.

  “She’s smart. People think she’s reserved and distant, but she’s not that way with her friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, people are drawn to her. She has a way with them. When someone’s pissed off or difficult, she can manage to totally turn the situation around. But even so, there’s a distance she keeps.” He paused a moment and traced the wood grain on the table with his finger.

  “Remember I told you my father died when I was ten? He was electrocuted putting a two-twenty line in the garage? Well, Amber and I had been in the garage just before. Dad and I had been fighting. He could be really mean when he was drunk, or angry, or frustrated, and he was having a hard time with electric line. Anyway, we’d had a big fight and I’d stormed out. Amber stayed there with him. I left, and Amber stayed and saw him die. She saw him electrocuted. She was only five and it really messed her up to see that. She was in such shock that she didn’t even run into the house to get help. Mom found her there, just staring at Dad, when she went out to see how things were going.”

  Wyatt looked up at me and I could see the impact of this terrible tragedy in his eyes. “Amber was in therapy for years and years. She was convinced she’d killed Dad. The therapists said this was normal. That kids think their feelings of anger toward parents result in their death. I’m amaze
d she turned into a normal teen, a normal young woman. She saw Dad die in a horrible way. I don’t think I’d ever have been able to break free from that kind of thing.”

  I’d seen a lot of beings die through electrocution. Heck, I’d killed a lot of beings that way myself. Personally, I thought it was funny, but I could imagine how terrible it would be for a human to witness it. Especially someone you loved, a member of your family. I hated seeing Wyatt with that look in his eyes. It made me hurt, too.

  “What did you guys do together growing up?” I asked, shifting the conversation to hopefully a lighter, more pleasant memory. “We’re you close? Did you fight? Did she melt your toys and hang them from the rafters?”

  Wyatt gave me an odd look. “We didn’t have a lot of money for toys. If we’d destroyed each other’s stuff, my Mother would have beaten our butts. We were close, but with five years apart we had different sets of friends and different interests. She didn’t get in as much trouble as I did, but then Amber has always been good at sweet talking her way out of trouble. Mom says it’s a Lowrey trait, that Dad was the same way.”

  “You’re good at sweet talking, too,” I told him in admiration. “I wish I had that talent.”

  “Hmmm, maybe, but Amber makes me look like an amateur. Anyway, as we got older, we’d do stuff together occasionally. See a band, go to the beach with a group of friends, camp out.” He laughed. “All my friends wanted to date her. They were always pestering me to set them up with her.”

  I could imagine so. If she’d gotten half the looks that Wyatt had, she probably attracted quite a bit of attention.

  Wyatt pushed the stack of breeding petitions aside to reach for the egg rolls. “Did you have a lot of brothers and sisters growing up? Besides Dar, I mean?”

  “Oh yeah.” I laughed. “There are hundreds in a group at a time. The home I was raised in was pretty selective, though, and I only had two hundred siblings. Sixty made it to adulthood.”

  “You lost seventy percent of your family?” Wyatt asked, looking at me in sympathy. “What happened?”