Retribution, Devotion (2 page)

It was the jarring sound of his Glocks going off, a piercing, soul-gripping scream, a tearing pain at his heart and soul chakra—with that of the intercepting clanging of metal scraping against concrete—that drew his attention away from pushing his power to a lethal level. Calvin Freeman-Tem knew without even seeing what exactly was going on behind him. It was a no-brainer for him that today was a game changer. Game changers in his world were no idle thing for him. They were like being given an anointing message in church, or getting a specific message penned to you in a horoscope or palm reading. They were like little bursts of sage advice given by a loving Nana, which was helping him now. The battle they were in was mounting into an epic warfare that was going to change not only his ragtag group of warriors, his House, and position, but also all of the Nephilim, both Light and Dark, and humans' world.

His cousin was cut down. The Oracle was gone. He knew this by their familial blood bond. He could feel the stopping of her heart. She had been hit by a Cursed blade. Only such weapons could cut down, maim, and kill a Nephilim; human weapons took longer to harm, but that wasn't the case with special-class Nephilim weapons, both Light and Dark. She had been hit hard, and because she was still awakening, he knew she was done for; she was still just human, even though she was coming into her power. His heart was breaking.

Today in the life of an Immortal Mystic warrior as himself, all hell was about to let loose. It wasn't due to the fact that the sudden rain that was falling around them had fallen at an eerie, slow pace. Or that the woman, who was his god cousin, wailed on her hands and knees in half-Dragon form causing the building to shake with her power. Even as the beauty of the Dragon's iridescent wings overtaking the sky memorized him while she pounded onto the concrete roof of the high-rise they were currently located wasn't the reason for his sharp awareness. The same could be said with the fact that the Dragon was between his cousin Sanna and a guy, he had formed a relatively close friendship protecting them both with a power sigil that etched into the concrete surface. That pretty dope show of new power from the Dragon wasn't why he looked on in frozen awareness where he was.

No, it was the fact that he stood watching in painful shock, tucking his winning prize against the lining of his jacket, covering it in Mystic power to keep it there, as the atmosphere around them began to pulse with a life of its own. He was familiar with it. He was very familiar with the exchange of power that was connecting with the life in every molecule in the area. The Reaper was coming to life and his homeboy was turned all the way up.

Calvin glanced over his shoulder checking for the two bitches who caused all the chaos and disarray around them. There was no sign of them, but his Mystic Locus Tracer was leaving a trail for him in the darkness of the night. He turned at that moment to see his friend, Khamun, once known as the Attacker, an unknown aggressive and manic killer, running through the streets of Chicago, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri taking down any being or entity that was either Cursed or touched by the Cursed, bulking in size. Calvin knew shit was getting real the longer Khamun stood dumbstruck. He stared down at the body of his cousin's fallen body and the stream of ruby blood that stained the rooftop.

Khamun's ropy locks sparked with silver currents of power, flowing over the cord-tight surface of his constricted biceps, forearms, and surging around his clenched fist as an energy ball. Dude looked like something out of an anime series to Calvin. His usually warm brown eyes were pitch-black. The typically Hershey chocolate tone of his skin began to radiate in a fiery cadence. His already cresting fangs were now at animalistic lengths and his boy just kept getting bigger in size.

Calvin remembered in his Mystic classes that only Archangels, warrior-class entities, could get to sizes as Khamun, and right now, dude was on some WWE proportions. Hulking up was an understatement. The moment the Reaper's silver-black wings overshadowed his god cousin's Kyo's wings, and shifted from being soft feathers to that of steel and “cut you hard as a diamond” mode, Calvin knew to step back. He saw everyone—Marco, Lenox, his baby sister Kali, the new kids on the team, everyone—step back as Khamun propelled in the air at sonic force, and hovering over them for a millisecond.

Calvin heard one of his crew say the guy he knew as R.J. was the Key, but in that moment, he didn't give a damn; his family and R.J. lay gutted. Chumps were about to get their heads busted in. Yet again, as was his right, he was about to take that familiar role he always did. All while Khamun, no, as the Reaper, who his boy officially learned was his true nature, began his holy wrathful binge on the two women who set him off: the Dark Lady and her bitch of a pet, the Medusa. Sweat ran down his face and he wiped it away while catching his breath.

Calvin popped a Qua Gum stick in his mouth to replenish himself. He wiped his brow, made sure all his Mystic-blessed bullets in his Glocks were replenished, and he glanced at his other team members and followed his boy. Both Lenox and Marco gave him an understanding nod. He wanted to stay by his cousin's side, but he knew he had to do his job, and by doing that, he was still honoring his cousin. It was his turn to be the anchor, since he was the Mystic of the group.

It was his duty to cover the Reaper in charging healing spells as a means of keeping him in the game of hunting after the enemy. Even though he was getting tired from using all of his magic, he had to do this. Even at risk of his own health, he had to do this, because he was trained to do so, family was everything to him, and he wanted to get his vengeance out on the broads who just took from him. Eye for a damn eye. Crooked tooth for a jagged grill.

So, he jumped from the roof using his power to buffer his fall, and he landed Timbs first in a full run in the narrow alleyways before him as he tracked the Reaper in the night sky. This was for family and this was for his blood. Today was going to be a good day for hunting the Cursed. Welcome to the life of a Guardian Team, especially the life of an Immortal Mystic Class Disciple, such as Calvin was.

 

 

The Reaper slowly stood while everything surrounding him gradually faded behind him in a tunnel of sound waves and light. He wasn't done. They were not done. His fiancée lay crumbled and in critical danger. Bright red blood drained from her stomach wound. The man who took the brunt of it lay beside her, lifeless, as something like screeching shrieks, which he identified in the back of his mind, came from Kyo.

Something had snapped within his lethal mind causing him to deliberately roll his broad shoulders. The Reaper instantly came alive and his amber irises flickered in the moonlight before darkening to coal black. With every breath he took, his metallic silver ebon wings rose up and down in his fury. His locks lifted from his muscular shoulders. His muscles tightened and constricted to the point where his veins seemed ready to burst. This couldn't be happening.

A snarl flashed across his handsomely defined features and his incisors dropped to deathly lengths, marking him ready for the hunt. This was his fault. With his fists clenched to the point of his nails almost cutting into his palms, a sonic current surrounded him. The wave of energy covered him in a cloak and he disappeared, using a transition spell, which landed him near where his enemy had fallen beside the building. Nostrils flaring, he inhaled deeply, instantly catching their scent like a rabid dog.

She should have stayed in the compound as he tried to make her.
She should have listened!
Before she had come into this life, his soul mate, Sanna, the woman in his arms, was just an extraordinary female human. Sanna had been attempting to make a name for herself as a chef and restaurateur in the St. Louis, Missouri area with her best friend. Life was good for her, as he recalled. It was his duty to watch her, to protect her as all Guardian Angels did. However, that changed with the onset of her returning migraines and her first face-to-face meeting with a demon sent out to harm her.

After that, his role changed. He ignored the rules of his people, the Nephilim Society, by breaking his code of never interacting with humans in the flesh. It wasn't hard to do for him, because the day he was assigned Sanna's case, he had fallen in love with her vibrant soul. It was only later, once her life became threatened, that he learned she was not just an ordinary human, but also one that carried Nephilim DNA. This was when things changed.

He and his team of protectors, Nephilim and Immortal humans who had come together to work in Society to protect innocents from the Dark, came to Sanna's aid. As special beings, they could blend into the human population without anyone knowing if they were angels or other worldly entities. This was how he, her cousins Calvin and Kali, and his cousin Marco and Lenox, were all able to surround her in protection after the demon attacks became worse. To human's eyes, even demons appeared human, only if they were possessing a corrupted human, which to Sanna's eyes at that time any demon attacked, they appeared human, until they shifted to reveal the monsters they were. This introduced Sanna and her best friend Kyo to his world: a world where if a person was not a full-blooded angel, then that person may be ostracized, while being used. His world was full of hypocrites who believed that the only role of an angel was to protect and ignore the human condition. By breaking those bigot codes, he and his team, his close comrades discovered generations of hidden secrets. They learned that not only was Sanna half Nephilim but that Kyo was a Gargoyle.

It was revealed that Sanna was also a powerful force called the Oracle. Through her, they found an old book of Nephilim codes, laws, lost biblical truths, and journal entries labeled a devotion book, which had other lost companion books. In the book, he discovered that he was no ordinary Guardian Angel. That the fangs he bore, were no genetic anomaly placed on them from generations prior of the first Fallen Angels lying with humans.

No, he was a creation meant to hunt down demons and feast on the souls they craved to make dark through their demonic blood. He was a Reaper, from a line of Sin Eaters meant to destroy the Cursed. Both women in his care were special. It was their destiny to make the Nephilim Society, mainly the Council, realize that they were dying in the war against Light and Dark, and all because of their prejudices and staunch beliefs. Their ignorance was aiding the Cursed.

The Cursed were dark Nephilim who made his people almost extinct on earth all on the orders of their evil King, his daughter the Dark Lady and her Dark Gargoyle pet, the Medusa. They were a part of a kingdom of demonic entities who hunted, ravished, and possessed their prey. With just a touch or bite, they tainted, to kill and pillage any human they wanted and destroy any angels they could find. Those key things continued the ancient battle between the Cursed and the Light. This with the attack against the Oracle and his family was why he now was in full Reaper mode.

His prey's spicy feminine scent had him propel himself in the air. At the same time, he wiped blood from his face with his cocoa-tatted forearm. The blood fresh from his battle smeared into his mouth making him lick his plump lips with the taste of both his cousin's and her demon Protector's dark marker. He flattened his tongue to the roof of his mouth then slowly curled it, moving it around to savor it like wine. This allowed him to implant their tracker into his body. Air quickly became his friend. It caressed him as a familiar lover would which allowed him to leap up and surge through the darkness. Darkness caused his sight to switch into night vision, helping in his hunt to locate the Dark Lady's pumping pulse easier.

He saw that both she and her Dark Gargoyle stumbled through back alleys trying to make it back to their headquarters. Their escape was not about to go down tonight. He let out a low growl. He knew they heard him, which made this ever more satisfying for him. Retribution was only his and he could taste their anger at losing the battle before it turned into sour fear. This was a fear he was familiar with. See for him, this was the true, purest form of fear, fear not created and owned by the Dark.

The Dark was known to feed on fear from humans and they never feared anything themselves except their Dark Lord. But this was a dread new to them and the Reaper laughed knowing this was perplexing for them. The terror they were experiencing was based in the knowledge and rooted in the reality that he could snuff them out and lay them at the feet of their Dark Lord for their failure, all before showing them what true divine punishment was. Mortal fear was what it was, a flaw in their eyes with mixing with humans. This was that irritating fear that maybe they had made the wrong choice in accepting the Dark and the Reaper loved it. You reap what you sow meant oh so much when dealing with him. However now he knew that his cousin was coming to that realization.

Unbeknownst to Khamun, this was the reason why his line was wiped out long ago: his power was a threat. The true Dark Lord himself had to be careful in how he killed the Most High's most revered weapons. If he killed off too many, he threatened to destroy the delicate good-versus-evil balance and ending his reign in hell. There were rules to this game and the Reaper was slowly learning that. He had to check how he killed his enemy. If he allowed his spirit to truly fall by killing his prey out of darkness and not light, then his birthright was over.

The sound of a slight scraping of metal caused him to take in his surroundings. A miniscule glint in the dark had his instant attention. They were near. Hurriedly he flew in the sky to drop upon a rooftop's edge to watch his prey. The Dark Lady stood below holding her side while resting her shoulder against a brick wall. Her long mahogany dark hair was matted to her ruddy sepia face. Her back heaved up and down. Her downcast face let him know that she was watching her pet pale and sway from loss of blood.