Assassin

Chapter 1-2

Dawn came as they pulled up to Wilcox Memorial Field, like Zophiel figured they would.

“So, let’s get you done,” Zophiel said. He shuffled her out of the car once it was in long-term parking and helped her through the intake process. Once they came to the metal detectors, he hoisted Monica’s cases onto the conveyor belt.

“Thanks,” she told him, sincere and warm. “I’d hate to think what would’ve happened if things didn’t get sorted out.”

He was happy about her discretion. “What are friends for?”

With a smile, Monica enveloped him in a quick, crushing hug and then she was off. Zophiel laughed and waved at her. She waved back from the line that already started to clog up the security area.

Once he’d lost sight of Monica in the bustle of humanity, he went back out into the fresh morning air and sauntered around, in no rush. After he rounded to the back of a far building, maintenance shed if he had to guess, he pulled his Fire around him and forced his outline to blur into shadow.

Zophiel couldn’t teleport; the space-time barrier was inviolate even to him while he was flesh and blood. He coaxed the weight out of his bones and unfurled his wings from the pocket of some higher dimension he didn’t care for the mechanics of, and jumped into the sky.

Wind rushed past him as he flew back to Fox, a stream of air under and over and through him. Every stroke of his wings, massive creations of dulled red, took him farther away. He loved this part of his existence. Nothing was freer, of order and chaos, than the sky.

His Fire shuddered as though a pebble had been thrown at it. It was a full minute before he stopped, wings straining against his own forward momentum. He dreaded the soreness he knew he would feel for days after this.

That feeling pinged against him once more, an itch he couldn’t scratch. It rocketed in a parallel trajectory of his own, oily and terrible in his sight. A black blotch on the air, like a dark tornado funnel about to hit the ground. Maybe it was the adaphat that followed Monica?

With a mighty flap, Zophiel was off in the direction of the creature. He’d rather go back to Levi, pissed as his mate was, but this was way more important. The sun trailed behind, warm and bright, the adaphat zipping along fast. Zophiel was faster, but he let the thing set the pace. Maybe this would be easy. Just follow it to its bolthole and kill it there. No fuss, no muss, no bullshit.

Midmorning came on as the adaphat slowed at the outer limits of Fox, and changed direction toward the far side. It cut straight through the middle of the little burg and settled in an abandoned building a few miles from the Thomas house. Not far enough, in Zophiel’s opinion. But then, destroyed wasn’t far enough either.

Zophiel spotted a clump of trees and descended down its center. It wouldn’t hide him well, if the creatures stuck their heads out, but it worked to keep humans from noticing him as he phased back into normal sight. Zophiel’s bones popped as they regained weight and his wings creaked with protest as he stuffed them away. He stepped away from the trees, quieter than a house cat and made a careful path to the rotten farmhouse.

A dubious examination of the wood told him a hard wind would blow the sumbitch down. Good. This made it easier to hide the potential evidence that a fight was about to go down. He pulled a short sword out of his Fire with a passing thought and gripped it tight in his hand.

Gaps in the slats provided more than adequate peepholes, so Zophiel eased up to a side wall and glanced in.

A huge pit of adaphat coiled and shifted in on itself, a gross pool on the filthy floor. There were darker holes sprinkled around the dank center, indicative of individual creatures. It was the power that animated them. Entropy had Its own sort of influence on the Universe, beyond devouring anything It could get Its ravenous maw on. It stole and repurposed the things It consumed to further Its own ends. These pieces of Itself, carved off and forced to movement, were an example.

There were more than Zophiel could deal with. He counted the darker spots and they totaled up to almost two dozen. s**t. And that’s just the ones in the house. What if there were more somewhere? Alone, it was a suicide mission to try to destroy them.

From the look of the swarm, they had settled in for a long rest period. This was no quick cause havoc and leave group. The walls had taken on the oily feel that adaphat were known for, which only happened when they stopped in one place for a while.

If Zophiel had to pin down a date, he would say they’d been in the house for at least a year before Castiel came down. Why though? What could possibly attract this many adaphat in one place?

A screech pierced the air inside. The pool roiled and flopped over. A bright little spark slipped under the wall on the far side of where he was and Zophiel only saw a flash of fur. Then that spark was snuffed under the adaphat, as if it’d never been. Zophiel clenched his eyes shut, saddened. That poor old dog didn’t have a chance.

He went back to his watch, wishing his brothers were with him.