Death's Mantle: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Revelations Book 1) (8 page)

“Yeah, hold on a second.” She turned to Caden and kissed him. “Okay, hurry up.”

“Okay,” Caden replied, taking the phone from her hands. “But we’re going to talk about this later.”

“What are you doing here?” Malcom asked as he poked his head into the kitchen. He took a confused step backward and gripped the doorframe for support. His ebony skin looked so dark against the white paint that, for a moment, it seemed like he was darkness incarnate.

“I’m just leaving, we’re done making out for the day. She’s all yours, tiger.” Caden brightened as he spied Ian just behind Mal. “Awesome, Ian can you give me a ride?”

“I didn’t drive, man.” Ian smiled his “you just sprayed me with soda at the swim meet you huge jerk” smile.

“How’d you get here then?” Caden looked concerned. “We both know he doesn’t drive anymore.” Caden jerked his thumb at Malcom. “Not like he could afford the gas anyway.”

Ian shrugged. Caden eyed him for a few moments before dialing into the phone and turning away from them. “Whatever. You’ve been hanging out with dork boy too much, Ian. Careful, don’t get let him stay over too much or his dad might come over to get him,” Caden replied, glancing back over his shoulder, but even though his words sounded angry, concern was etched into his features. “You won’t like that.”

“What are you talking about?” Ian asked as Caden spoke quietly into the phone and hung up.

“Nothing,” Ian replied, shrugging as he made eye contact with Mal. The two of them seemed to have an unspoken conversation before Caden nodded once and headed toward the front door.

As they passed each other, Caden leaned close to Malcom and whispered something Kim couldn’t hear. Malcom nodded back, a strange look on his face. Caden smirked and moved out of sight. A second later, she heard her front door close, which was a little weird because he had left his backpack by the back door. She glanced over her shoulder at the lime green backpack and sighed. How long would it be before he remembered it?

“Well that was fun,” Ian said with a sigh. “Why did I let you talk me into taking you over here?”

“Because there’s a cyclops on the loose who is after Kim, and I don’t drive?” Malcom offered, and Ian shook his head.

“I’m like this close,” Ian pressed his thumb and index finger together. “To not believing you about that.”

Mal opened his mouth to say something when Caden’s body burst through the kitchen’s back door in a spray of glass and debris. His body slammed into her kitchen table so hard the dark wood shook as he lay there, sprawled across the top of it, barely moving.

“Oh my god!” Kim screamed, rushing over to him and gathering his broken body into her arms. Fear and horror washed over her in waves as her gaze shifted from him to the broken doorway. What the hell had caused that?

“I’m in desperate need of a bargaining chip,” Polyphemus roared as he stepped through the shattered door and into the room. He was so large he had to duck his head and squat down on his haunches. One three-fingered hand was clenched around a huge hammer. Shards of pale sapphire glinted off of it as he pointed it at them. “Those barbarians have something I want. They have my wife, and they want someone for her.” He shrugged, and for some reason, the gesture enraged her. “It’s not personal.”

“Throwing my boyfriend through a door is ‘not personal?’” she screamed before she could help herself. Everything around her went sort of hazy as she stared at the massive creature, her lips curling into a snarl. She was going to make him pay for this…

It seemed like the cyclops barely moved, but somehow, he was right next to her. The air around him was so hot it scalded her flesh as she stumbled away from him, falling over a chair that clattered so loudly against the pale pink tile it made her hammering heart nearly burst through her chest.

“Polyphemus, get away from her!” Malcom cried, stepping toward the giant, his hands curled into fists.

The cyclops glanced at him and snorted. “You have no power over me, Mors. You have yet to truly take on your mantle and see.” Absently, the huge cyclops whipped his hammer outward, smacking Mal in the chest with the weapon. The sound was unlike anything Kim had ever heard, sort of a wet, cracking squelch.

Mal flew backward, crashing into the refrigerator with such force, he actually dented the front of it. He slid to the ground, leaving a scarlet smear on the metal. The cyclops laughed, a deep, throaty sound that sent chills crawling across Kim’s flesh. “Someday, Mors, you will look back on our encounters and thank me for opening the door for you.”

The cyclops took a step toward Malcom, his huge hammer raised in front of him. Blood dripped from the jagged, sapphire shards and spattered on the tile, leaving a trail behind him like a macabre Hansel and Gretel.

Everything around her faded away as she stood. Her skin was on fire, every nerve sizzling inside her. The urge to crush him beneath her heel was so strong, she couldn’t feel anything else. This thing wanted to defeat her? The idea was laughable.

She sneered and the world went white and opaque as she took a step toward the massive creature. Her footsteps echoed in the tiny room, and the cyclops turned toward her. The smile vanished from his face, and his huge eye widened.

“No,” he swallowed, swiveling around to bring his hammer in front of him. He clutched the weapon tightly, hanging onto it like doing so would keep him from falling off the world.

“Leave, now!” Kim said and her voice was like a trumpet call, like the crashing of hooves, like an invading army. “Or so help me…” the words left her in a tumble of rage as she raised her hand in the air and slowly curled it into a fist. Smoke curled off her body as a fog of wrath settled over her mind. Yes, she would destroy him, and it would be a righteous victory.

Unconsciously, she began to rub her thumb around the top two fingers on her right hand. It felt like she was nursing a fire. A worried look crossed Polyphemus’s face for a split second before vanishing behind an emotionless mask.

“You’re all the same to me.” Polyphemus’ crooked teeth curled into a cruel smile, and the sight of it sent a tremor down her spine.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, but even as the words left her mouth, the cyclops reached out with his free hand and seized Ian by the throat.

“I can trade any of you.” The cyclops jerked Ian against his body, one huge arm wrapping around Ian’s chest and hugging the squirming teen to his chest. “I’ll just take the one who hasn’t awakened yet.”

Kim lunged, her hands outstretched as Polyphemus began to glow bright white. He vanished as she landed hard on the tile floor, her fingers swiping through empty air.

Kim 01:03

Kim knew Malcom blamed himself for what had happened. It’d been several days since Ian’s disappearance, and there had yet to be any sign of him, or Amy and Jesse for that matter. To make matters worse, Caden was still in the hospital. Evidently, being thrown through a door wasn’t something the human body was designed to handle.

Admittedly, her attitude sort of concerned her because she wasn’t usually so snarky and uncaring, and after all, he was her boyfriend… still, ever since the incident with the creature, something had changed within her, and as much as she hated to admit it, she felt drawn to Malcom.

She crept up the stairs to Mal’s room though she hadn’t told him she was coming over to see him. Since she’d never returned the key he had accidentally left in her car when they dated, getting inside his house undetected was relatively easy. She just needed to wait until his dad left for work. Thankfully, his shift had started a few minutes ago.

Malcom was sitting, almost unmoving, in the middle of the threadbare beige carpet covering his room’s floor. A thin line of blood trailed from his lip, down his chin and onto his plain white t-shirt. His left eye was blackened, and his cheek badly bruised. Where had he gotten those injuries from? He hadn’t had them at school a few hours before.

“Kim, is that you dear? Are you here?” a woman called from downstairs before she made it through his bedroom door.

Malcom didn’t move. Had he not heard her call? That was a little strange…

Kim sighed, painted a smile on her lips, and went downstairs to meet Malcom’s mother, Marilyn. Her dark face was completely plastered in makeup, and her long black hair was bunched on top of her head in a series of concentric braids.

She was one of those women who never needed to wear makeup, but every so often she would apply very heavy makeup for a few days at a time. Kim always wondered why she did this, or why she would wear long sleeves in the heart of summer, but never really questioned it. She had long since resolved to let the woman handle her own fashion, even if it made no sense. Besides, who was she to tell Malcom’s mother how to dress and apply makeup?

“I haven’t seen you in a while. I was worried something had happened between the two of you,” Marilyn whispered, voice quivering as though she dreaded the answer. She turned away before Kim could respond and focused herself on removing groceries from the large paper bag in the middle of their tiny wooden table. It was a hideous thing with green legs and a scarred, battered wooden top. Kim wasn’t quite sure where they had gotten it exactly, but she vaguely remembered hearing a story about it being ‘rescued’ from a restaurant following a bankruptcy.

Kim smiled awkwardly, not that it mattered because Marilyn was focused on the egg carton in her hand as she carried it toward the refrigerator like it was a priceless Ming vase. There had been one time when she’d broken an egg, and instead of just cleaning up and shrugging it off, Marilyn had gone back to the store for more eggs. It was a little odd...

“Malcom seemed down. I’m glad you came over to cheer him up. Despite our quirks, you’ve always been such a good girlfriend, Kim,” she continued. “I’d love if you came over more, but I know it’s sort of difficult to arrange a time for you to come over…”

“Yeah… it’s my fault, I got distracted with some things and didn’t get a chance to make enough time.” Kim gave her a weak smile as a thought struck her. Malcom must not have told his parents they had broken up. The fight seemed silly now, but at the time, it had seemed important. After all, what did it matter if Malcom had wanted to keep his shirt on when they went to the beach?

“Well, don’t let me keep you. Go up and visit him, honey.” Marilyn turned back toward her grocery bag. “I’ll bring you two up some sandwiches in a bit.”

“Okay, thanks,” Kim said, flashing a smile at the older woman even as guilt stabbed her in the back of the brain. Could she really stay here and pretend she was still ‘with’ Malcom? That was impossible, right? He needed to tell his parents. Then again, why was she even here? She’d wanted to see him, to talk about what they should do about the cyclops. They couldn’t just wait for it to show back up, could they? That seemed like a plan destined for failure.

When she got back into his room, Malcom was leaning half out the window with the shade pulled all the way to the top and the large blue blackout curtains flung to either side. He turned toward her as she entered the room. His eyes were wild, and his face… his face was completely healed… No, she had to have just imagined it hurt before. Healing that quickly wasn’t possible.

“Kim, it’s amazing,” he said, pulling himself away from the window and crossing the distance between them in two huge strides. She was always amazed at how quick he was when he wanted to be, especially given his size. She’d always suggested he go out for football or basketball, but despite her pleading, he never did, even though she knew doing so would make his father happy. For whatever reason, Malcom never did things to make his father happy if he could help it.

“Calm down and speak in words,” she told him nervously. “And don’t you want to know why I’m here?”

He ignored her question. “I kept feeling it. There was like this burning energy in my hand, like it was begging to come out… Then it did! I held it there in my hand. It was like this green ball of pale light.” Malcom held his right palm out to her and poked it with his left index finger. “It healed me, Kim. It was amazing!”

Kim swallowed audibly and took a step back, trying to create distance between them. Thankfully, he didn’t move toward her. “That’s great,” she said because really what else could she say? He was acting crazy, but then again, they were being chased by a cyclops… and she’d felt something too, felt the same power within her. Malcom nodded and went back to staring at his hand. “But we need to talk about the cyclops—”

“Okay, yeah,” Malcom said, but she wasn’t quite sure he
actually
heard her speak. “Can you take me to the school? I want to try something.”

“What?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow up at him even as a chill made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Something told her this was a bad idea.

“It’s a surprise, but it will be awesome.” Mal grabbed her hand and pulled her through the doorway. He’d done it so quickly, she couldn’t even protest. He released her as he stepped down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He reached the bottom before she’d even taken two steps and glanced back at her. “Come on.”

“Okay,” she said and placed her now empty hand on the banister. She should not have come here. It was too dangerous. She should have just called him, but that was dangerous too… still, Mal was acting strange, and as she reached the bottom step and followed him out of the house, a traitorous thought struck her. How bad could his surprise really be?

Kim 01:04

Cars screeched by them, forcing Kim into the left lane to keep from being sideswiped. Brake lights flashed in front of her like a rolling wave of red. She swerved hard to the right, halting her car mere inches from the soccer mom van in front of her. Sirens exploded through the air, their high-pitched keening shattering the silence outside as an ambulance pushed its way through the right lane, lights strobing.

“I thought cars usually park on the right when sirens sounded.” Malcom’s face was plastered against the window as he stared at the ambulance. “Isn’t that one of the rules?”