Here's the archive for the story most of you get delivered direct to your e-door every day... in case you're missing anything. I anticipate I'll probably keep this part just as updated, so enjoy.
“Look at them. Maggots. They have no idea what’s about to go down.” Adlai took one last drag of his cigarette before flicking the butt away, glaring through slitted eyes at the tired sweaty patrons of the roadside gas station. “Little do they know they are about to be touched by those very forces they worship and pray to all their pathetic little lives.” He turned to his companion. “Shall we get to it, then?”
Taking a breath to voice his agreement, Raziel spotted two small children, jumping from their family’s minivan and disappearing into the convenience store.
“Oh come on, Raz, they’ve seen worse on the telly,” Adlai dismissed, anticipating the other’s dissent. Reaching casually into the backseat of the old Dodge, he drew out an intimidating shotgun, which he pumped once for effect, then tossed to his silent companion. Raziel looked at the weapon ruefully until Adlai used one word to remind him of its purpose. “Intimidation.”
“That’s why I miss my wings so much, Adlai,” the bitter demon said wearily, hefting the foreign weight and striding to the door of the shop.
“All right, we know she’s in here! Let us have her and no one gets hurt!”
We were here because of Liv. Not that I’m not up for a little innocent experimentation every once in a while, myself, but the lesbian clubs are not quite my style. Cleo and I indulge her, though, and make sure she doesn’t drink too much. Liv likes to party, and well, fun is fun.
Cleo and I had been sipping our daiquiris at a little darkened table in the back. Neither of us really felt like partying that night, and so we were half-assedly trying to look like a happy couple. Liv was really working the dance floor that night, but I noticed one woman keeping her company especially, a gorgeous specimen probably of Arab descent. The two eventually came by our table; Liv likes to check back in on her more reserved sisters periodically.
The stranger was introduced as Samira; and from the first brush of her hand I knew Liv was a lot more drunk than she looked. A jolt of preternatural energy jumped down my arm when I touched her skin; I was proud of myself for not visibly jumping. She had whirled Liv back to the dance floor before I could even react, however.
“Mercedes, did you feel that?” Cleo whispered to me. I nodded gravely. “Liv’s more smashed than I thought. What do you think that was?”
I rolled Samira’s energy around in my head, trying to get a feel for her nature. “She’s definitely strong…”
“Stronger than us?” Cleo asked worriedly, looking out at the oblivious Liv tossing her honey-colored hair to the pounding beat.
“Not combined,” I dismissed, still trying to identify that dark color… “She’s not a witch… definitely something malignant,” was all I could conclude. “We should probably just get Liv and get out of here.”
Cleo stared at me for a moment, realizing I was actually a little scared. I could see her weighing the risk of picking a fight with this thing, whatever she was. “I trust you, Mercedes,” was what she finally concluded, and looked back out at the floor. “But where did they go?”
I couldn’t see either of our prey either. “Well, let’s just hope Liv needed a bathroom break?” I suggested, standing up to investigate. We left a tip on the table and headed to the other side of the crowded dance floor.
“Liv?” I called as we entered the strangely empty ladies’ room. I heard only a slight gurgle as a response and hoped to the gods that our Third was just puking her brains out.
As I approached the stall responsible for the noise, however, I felt a current of air rush past my ear and the door slammed open. I heard a snarl and then was face to face with a feral vampire, thanks to Cleo’s premature energy blast. “Oh shit!” I exclaimed, and dropped to the floor as the monster dove for me; I had saved myself but realized too late that that sent her right into Cleo. Though if anyone could handle herself, it was that girl. I staggered into the bathroom stall to find Liv disoriented but conscious, without a mark on her, thank the Goddess. I grabbed her hand both to steady her and to open a link between her power and mine; we’d need the full energy of the coven to overpower this woman. When we stepped out of the stall I was relieved to see Cleo had managed to get herself between us and the vampire, which was rapidly fighting its way through the crackling blue flames shooting from our sister’s hands. Liv was at least sentient enough to know to link herself to Cleo, and the monster’s power was no match for the full triumvirate. And Samira knew it; she turned tail with no more than a frustrated snarl when we three faced her down united. “Pick your prey more wisely next time!” Cleo called after her. Liv collapsed against the wall.
With a yawn, the apathetic sales clerk at the roadside convenience mart rung up the old vet’s usual, the carton of Marlboro 100s and lottery scratch-off after lottery scratch-off. While he did this, the teen would invariably wonder if his life would always be this mundane. Did the future hold anything even remotely worth his attention?
Outside he heard the growl of a motorcycle, but when he looked up a moment later there was nothing in the lot. As he gave the old man his change he heard the pleasant “ding” of the door chime, however, and when he looked up a breathtaking woman was staring frantically through the plexiglass of his gas station cashier’s cubicle.
“You have to help me,” she pleaded, pressing one delicate hand against the window. “There are some men following me,” she explained, glancing fearfully out the window before fixing the boy with a soulful, panicked gaze. “Please, you’ve got to hide me.”
To the adolescent with no future, this sounded like the intro to a porno movie. “Uh, come here behind counter,” he said at his awkward suave-est.
The night after the attack we stayed up talking after putting the lights out in our dorm room.
Well, Cleo and I stayed up. Liv pretty much passed out as soon as we got home.
“Do you think we should do anything?” Cleo asked me fervently. “I mean, a vampire in town is a pretty big deal.”
“But does that really matter to us?” I posed. “It’s not like we’re the supernatural defenders of the city or anything. I doubt she’s going to bother us again.”
“I suppose if vamps deserved to be staked, we deserve to burn, eh?”
I barked a laugh at Cleo’s little joke and rolled over to sleep.
"What do you think, Donovan, you and him."
"What?" Donovan asked, looking up from his pint rather dully.
Samira nodded in the direction of the gigantic stuffed shark hanging above the bar. "You and that bloke up there. Locked in mortal combat. Who'd come out on top?"
Donovan eyed the seven-foot fish for a moment. "On land, or in water?"
Samira looked up at the beast with a self-absorbed half smile and suggested "an inflatable kiddy pool."
Benedict came back from the pay phone with a slightly worried look in his eye. "The Master's calling us in," he announced, chugged the rest of his glass and went back out to the car without waiting for a response.
"Another time, then," Samira called to the mounted shark as they followed Benedict outside.
“I want Twizzler’s!”
“I want Reesies!”
“No, I’m gonna get Reese’s!” the children argued, racing through the door of the convenience mart and on hurriedly to the candy aisle. They therefore didn’t see the man they heard crash through the door only moments after them, growling “Let us have her and no one gets hurt!” They peered around the Snickers and Pixie Stix to see a tall well-dressed man waving a pistol, followed by a shorter dark one with a shotgun.
The pimpled clerk looked like he was about to pee his pants. He had his hands in the air and he had to swallow hard before he could manage to squeak “There’s only a couple bucks in the register…”
“We don’t want your money, you little shit, just the girl,” the fierce man with the pistol snarled, coming over to brandish his piece right under the teen’s nose.
“G-g-g-girl?” the boy stammered, eyes locked on the weapon inches from his face.
“Oh, she’s here alright,” the man with the shotgun said lowly, an odd smirk on his face. “I can smell her.”
The clerk’s eyes were beginning to glaze over from fear. “I don’t think this one’s going to be of any use to us, Adlai,” the shorter one indicated, “just look at him.”
Adlai grinned and cracked the boy across the face with the pistol, dropping him to the floor.
At that moment the driver of the minivan walked into the store, noticing too late the armed men at the counter. They whirled around at the sound of the door chime, and the only thing the surprised mother could utter was “My babies! Where are my babies?!”
Adlai pointed his now-bloody pistol at her slowly. “Take your kids and get out. Drive far, far away.” The woman nodded slowly, then looked around the little store.
“Amanda? Bryan?” she called. “Come over here to Mommy.”
The desensitized children looked forlornly at the candy one last time before scurrying to the door. The frantic mother took each of them by the hand and began to lead them out.
“Hey, kids!” Raziel called before they were out the door. He grabbed a handful of chocolates from the counter and tossed them to the children’s eager hands before their mother snatched them away.
Adlai met Raziel’s eyes with a snicker. “Those kids are going to think you’re ‘cool’ now, Raz,” he laughed. “Want to grow up to be just fucking like us.”
“So what’s the story, Benedict?” Donovan asked from the back seat after the trio was already well on their way to wherever the hell they were going.
“There’s been a Fall,” Benedict simply said, studiously weaving in and out of traffic.
“It happens,” Samira said, disinterestedly studying her nails.
“There two are naïve and impressionable,” Benedict explained, “as the newly fallen usually are. The Master hopes to take advantage of their… bewilderment to use their powers to increase his own.”
“Meaning he wants to bleed them dry,” Samira smirked. “I hope he shares…”
“And why is he sending us?” Donovan asked sardonically.
“Does the Master ever do his own dirty work?” was Benedict’s only reply.
It took Zaida a long time to come to, and even longer to drag herself up out of the ditch.
“All right, darling, we have the place to ourselves now,” Adlai announced loudly to the empty aisles of the convenience mart. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he laughed to himself, his voice reverberating through the perhaps thirty cubic feet of the establishment.
Raziel remained by the counter. “I smell you, little angel,” he whispered, then pointed Adlai under the counter. The tall man grinned and ripped the flimsy siding aside, exposing the frightened girl. Raziel crouched to rip her from the wreckage, but his demeanor changed suddenly when he actually saw the huddled figure. He grasped her arms as if she were made of porcelain and lifted her carefully to her feet. “Anais,” he breathed in recognition.
“So where are we going, exactly?” Samira asked about a half hour later, finally bored with her impeccable manicure.
“To the landing site,” Benedict replied in is usual dry manner.
“What, you think she’s still going to be there?”
Benedict shrugged. “It’s possible. This is the only lead the Master gave me.”
Donovan snorted. “So what are we going to do? Ask around? ‘Excuse me, sir, but did you see where that girl that fell from the sky went?’ Ha!”
“Ooh ooh!” Samira exclaimed, suddenly jumping forward in her seat. “When I was hunting in the city the other day, I came across some pretty powerful witches that fought me off before I could get even a taste of one of them… but anyway, the two that weren’t drunk could tell what I was immediately, I think. I could see my energy send a thrill through them as soon as we touched.”
“A couple of adepts like that would be great to have on our side, wouldn’t you say, Benedict?” Donovan marveled.
“But will they cooperate, is the question,” Benedict replied rationally. “You did attack one of them, Samira.”
“I didn’t know what she was,” Samira excused herself. “I’m sure they’ll come around.”
Benedict’s U-turn signaled his acceptance of the plan.
“Old chums, eh?” Adlai jeered at the pair of Fallen, suddenly staring at each other like they were the only two people in the world.
They only had ears for each other. “Raziel, it’s been so long…”
“I never even dared to hope that you’d…” The demon that had almost forgotten the heavenly chorus began.
The newly stained angel looked down in shame. “Please don’t…”
Raziel shook his head. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask.”
Adlai yawned loudly. “Hate to break up the reunion, but we should probably get out of here before this guy comes to.”
Things were quiet for a few days after the incident at the club. We went to class, we studied at our favorite coffee shop, and we held our weekly worship out under the stars.
We came home that night buzzed from the magic and a thousand miles away from the mundane. Liv and Cleo waltzed through the door to our dorm room and stopped short, though not before I walked in after them, and the door slammed shut behind us.
Two large, intimidating men were lounging on Liv’s bed. The air was roiling with preternatural energy and its flavor was definitely of the bloodsucker variety. The dark-haired one was cuddling with Liv’s favorite teddy bear.
“Hello again,” a voice behind us called, and we whirled around to see Samira leaning against the only door out of the room. I reached back to link power with my sisters but a voice from the bed called “Wait.”
“What do you want?” was all I could think to ask.
“We have a… proposition for you,” the blonde on the bed replied, settling in for what promised to be a long conversation, “we need your help.”
Hot-headed Cleo whirled back to face the reclining man. “She attacks us and then you come crawling here for help?”
“We’re not crawling, little one,” the dark-haired man menaced, planting a kiss on the head of the little teddy bear in his arms.
I’m still not sure how we ended up crammed into Benedict’s luxury sedan, driving halfway across the country with a pack of vampires on a wild goose chase with no rewards.
Liv said she wanted to meet an angel.
Cleo and I had agreed this would be a good forum to learn more about the undead; we doubted the vamps would try and pull anything on us now, so this would be as safe as we’d ever get with their kind.
No one asked what they wanted with these angels, however.
Zaida fingered the tears in her shimmering gown forlornly as she stood by the edge of the road, knowing she was miles from anything but this stretch of cold pavement. The night breeze dislodged a silver feather from where it had been entangled in her hair, but she caught it before it floated too far, determined to hold on to some memento of her former glory.
A ride in a car full of vampires is not the most pleasant experience, but I felt sorriest for Liv, up front between Benedict and our old friend Samira. I think we were all sort of holding our breaths, trying to keep our living heartbeats from resounding through the vehicle, filling it with the aroma of fresh blood. We were too afraid to sleep, though we had been all but exhausted even two hours before.
Tensions ran high that first night, though the vamps were nothing but polite to us. Conversation was little to none. For the first few hours, that is. As the night wore on we began to grow more comfortable with one another, after all we would be working with one another.
Conversation became increasingly more suggestive.
“You can’t tell me you’re not tempted by it,” Donovan, to my right, murmured into my ear. He made sure his lips brushed its outer edges frequently as he spoke. “To feel yourself utterly surrender in my arms… a violation so deep and yet so sweet it will be burned forever into your memory. Every fiber in you cries out for my touch.”
Why is it that every two-bit demon and preternatural creature we come across thinks he’s destined to be our Dark Master, that for some reason a coven of young witches alone is always starving for a domineering and subjugating cock? Sorry boys, our circle is closed and quite complete, and we aren’t so easily seduced by vague promises based on horror movie clichés.
It didn’t take long at all for a car to stop for the beautiful waif by the roadside; but lucky for Zaida, the face that peered out of the window at her was that of a middle-aged housewife, a concerned smile lighting her face as she urged, “Get on in, child, before someone else tries to get ya. Don’t you know how dangerous it is to hitchhike?”
Zaida smiled nervously at the rosary hanging from the woman’s rearview mirror, eyes carefully avoiding the picture of the Virgin Mary laying on the dashboard.
“How’d a good girl like you get stuck out in the middle of nowhere, dressed like that?” the kindly woman marveled at Zaida’s shimmering gown. “Looks like someone tossed you in the ditch.”
Zaida smiled more bitterly, this time staring directly at Our Lady’s face, beaming from the dash. “You wouldn’t want to know.”
That long night’s ride was both emotionally draining and physically exhausting, but no one in the coven dared to sleep, especially the way conversation had been going. When we stopped at the motel at 4 a.m. there were some funny looks, but two rooms were acquired and we even helped the vamps tape heavy black tarps over the windows. After we vacated their room we heard them barricading the door. Finally safe, we crashed almost immediately as well, though not before securely locking our own door.
We woke a few hours before sunset, and so we went across the road to the little diner for something to eat.
Adlai had had just about enough of the lovebirds in the backseat, cooing and carrying on as no one would ever expect the damned to do. Besides, Anais still smelled of the flowers of Paradise, a scent which had beyond pervaded the old Dodge and was beginning to drive Adlai mad with memories. He never truly regretted turning his back on the Gates of Heaven, but the place did have its perks, after all, and it was not so fun being reminded of what was denied to him. “I’m stopping for some grub,” he announced after seeing the sign for the diner.
Everything seemed normal as we came in and got our table, but on my way to the bathroom I was hit with the most unsettling energy from a group of people in the back corner; it was all I could do not to visibly shudder as I passed. A well-dressed man and a slightly worse-for-wear woman were holding hands across the table while a second man maniacally raised his cigarette to his lips again and again, looking around as if he were attempting to pay attention to anything but the couple beside him.
When his gaze fell on me, I could tell he could sense I was different, just as I had never encountered a being like that man. A chorus of Gregorian monks began to sing in my head, one of those unsettling chants full of dire warning, and I imagined I could see both the Gates of Heaven and the fires of Hell in his eyes, which were piercing into mine. I could hardly breathe, but somehow I reached the ladies room without incident.
Washing my hands at the cracked and stained little sink, I tried to collect myself, staring into the mirror. And who walked in behind me but the woman from that unearthly table, bringing with her the most angelic aura I’ve ever felt, but tinged with such sadness… I knew she had to be one of the Fallen Ones we sought.
She smiled at me through the mirror before disappearing into a stall.
“She’s here,” I announced to my coven sisters when I got back to the table. “One of the angels is here.”
“Where?!” Liv asked excitedly, sticking her head up to look around the restaurant.
“Keep your head down!” I exclaimed. “She’s with some very evil men. I can hardly… She’s in the bathroom right now, but one of them is waiting right outside the door.” This time, I did shudder. “They know what we are, too. Probably smelled the magic on us as soon as we walked in.”
“What are they?” Cleo asked, sizing up the battle as always.
“Some kind of demon, and yet… they’ve seen heaven too.”
We were silenced for a moment. “What should we do?” Liv asked timidly. “I mean, the vamps won’t be up for hours.”
We thought. We really did. But we had no power to detain these beings by force, and could find no persuasion or trickery to keep them around.
Their check came at almost the same time as ours. “Well, if we’re letting them get away…”
“There’s really nothing else we can do,” Cleo interrupted, eager to excuse our apparent failure. “They’re just too powerful.”
“Yes,” I dismissed, eager to finish my point, “but if we’re not doing anything, we’d better not tell the vamps we even saw them.”
There was a silence as we imagined Benedict’s wrath, then we all hurriedly nodded our assent.
Still, we took down the plate numbers on the black Dodge as they drove away.