Ishtar Rising Page 5

  He had just hung up when his driver's side door was torn from it's hinges. He could see it sliding away from him on the highway, sparks kicking up from it's contact with the road. What could rip a car door off, he wondered in that frozen moment. Then there were more glowing eyes, multicolored this time, and singing.

  Everything else melted away.

  ***

  Tara Kay's old beat up Chevette slid to a stop in front of the stone house she had lived in with her parents. Papaw gave it to them when he had grown too old to take care of all the land and cattle. They had let it fall into ruin. It was condemned after the cops who hauled Kay's parents off to jail saw the condition it was in.

  Papaw had built it for his new wife after the war. Mamaw had married him after only having known him for two weeks. She always said that was how love was. Sometimes you just know. He had built the frame with lumber and the occasional sapling thrown in when he ran out of money. For a while there was no Sheetrock, just cardboard interior walls. The exterior walls were what really made the house special. The whole thing was bricked in local rock that Papaw had plowed out of the acreage he planned to use as his vegetable farm.

  Tara Kay loved that house. It looked like it belonged there, made from the earth as it was. She blew past it without a thought this time though. She ran as fast as her legs would move, her only thought was for her tree.

  Melody had put her in a panic. She'd said that they were really worried when they saw that her tree was gone. There hadn't been any reports of one, but it looked like a twister had yanked it out of the ground. Knowing how she felt about her tree, Melody had feared that Kay had done herself harm after seeing it's destruction.

  Melody was surprised when Kay had bolted. The girl had no idea that anything odd had befallen her beloved tree. She must have been preoccupied indeed to have gone so many days without checking on it. Their boss, Crash, had yelled at her but Kay didn't hear him. She left in the middle of her shift. She grabbed a baby tee from the backseat but that was all she had time to add before the drive. She ran through the woods now in just her stripper thong and that tiny shirt. Choosing to go barefoot, she'd tossed the ridiculous sparkling heels into the back.

  Tara Kay crumpled onto the ground at the place where her tree once stood. She choked back a sob as she gazed onto the blank spot that so accurately reflected how she felt. The roots were still there but the tree was gone. It looked violent and ragged. Her heart hurt. Oren knelt behind her, wrapping his arms around her. She fought and screamed at her loss and Oren let her. He took her thrashing and, when she was done, he wiped her tears with the pad of his thumb.

  “Ammeni baku?” he asked.

  Kay gestured, “My tree. My fucking tree is fucking gone! Gone! Destroyed while I was on a bender. With you!” She howled her words.

  Oren rocked her. “Darisam baltu oren.”

  Tired of dealing with his lack of understanding, she pushed away from him. She was angry and wanted to be alone. She stood with her toe pressed against a root. The root she had busted her lip on that fateful night. She watched as a tear splashed on the dark copper brownish red reminder of her last night with her tree.

  Oren stepped in front of her, standing in the freshly turned soil and root bits. “Darisam baltu oren.”

  It was as if he was disrespecting a grave and not just any grave but the one of her closest friend and relative. “I know your fucking name is Oren. Get out of there!” She yelled. She shook her head trying to clear her vision. She couldn't believe what she saw. The lower half of Oren had changed. His feet and legs grew out of the root system. His skin thickened and roughened into bark. His fingers lengthened and twisted into branches. Each strand of hair thickened and flattened into leaves.

  Too overcome to think, Kay touched the familiar texture of the thick bark. She studied every detail and none came up wanting. Oren was her tree. If that part of her clouded drugged night was real then what else about that night was real? Flying? Drinking blood?

  She climbed up as she had a thousand times and nestled into her favorite crook, which was still warn smooth from her many hours of resting there over the years. His face appeared like that of a forest fairy or tree elf and she wondered why she'd never noticed it before.

  “Darisam baltu oren.” It said.

  Kay wished she could understand him.

  “He says that he's the forever living tree.” Tara Kay almost fell from her perch at the new voice. She peered out at the man from who it'd come and almost lost her balance again. The man was gorgeous. Native American, his caramel skin and blue black silken hair matched his smooth velvety tenor voice. His teeth flashed white in the moonlight. “Aren't you a little old for tree climbing?”

  Tara Kay tried to think of a witty come back. “Aren't you a little...” Nothing came. ”Who the fuck are you anyway, to be judging me?”

  The smile slid from his face and he dropped to one knee. “You are right. Forgive me, Sinnis Sarrum. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Hurrit, child of light, born of Sarrum Arakiel Maru, surrogate guardian of his family line.”

  “Well, Hurrit, you're trespassing on my family land, so if you don't want me to call the sheriff you'll answer my questions. Why are you here? What do you want? And, since you know that crazy language Oren speaks: what the fuck is Sinnis? He keeps saying that like it should mean something to me.”

  There was that smile again. He angled his head to try and see through the foliage to her. “The answer to all three are the same: you, my queen.”

  ***

  Montana watched from a mile away. It was as close as he would get without knowing what he was up against. He still wasn't sure after seeing it with his own eyes. The giant was obviously a Nephilim but he was unsure about the girl. He didn't want to have a run-in with another of whatever that female warrior was back in Austin. He rotated his left shoulder. That woman had mopped the floor with him and his men like they were green recruits instead of the war hardened soldiers that they were, when they invaded her coven's compound. She had smashed his shoulder with a punch. A woman had taken him out of commission with her fist.

  He remembered his words to Brian. 'She didn't just dislocate my shoulder. She broke my clavicle in three places, tore, not stretched, not pulled, but ripped, no, destroyed every ligament and tendon holding my arm to my body. She turned my muscles and cartilage into jelly a full 5 inches out from her strike. Hell, she hit me from the front and somehow managed to pulverize my shoulder blade. She was a trained warrior, much more skilled at combat than her male partner, and though she didn't have wings, she glowed like them. She moved like them. And when we finally managed to shoot her with the tranq, she fell like them. She had no weapons. She caused enough damage with just her fists and feet. With all the hurt she put on us, she could have easily snapped our necks or morphed her arm into a sword like they usually do. She could have cut us in two. Hell, she could have torn us in two. It was almost like she was restraining herself. I don't know what the hell she was, but I hope they never make another like her.” He had warned his leader about the woman but they had no idea what to make of her. She had later taken out his whole unit and their base while Montana was away recovering from his shoulder replacement surgery.

  She had been looking for something that Montana had. He hadn't even told Brian about retrieving it from their compound. The DakuAhu was a dagger of untold power. It was the only thing that could kill the Nephilim and Akhkharu in a way that they couldn't regenerate. Montana had kept it safe, kept it hidden all through recovery and rehabilitation. He'd tested it on a human and discovered absolutely nothing. The human hadn't died from a single slice as the Nephilim were said to, but he couldn't be sure if it was supposed to work that way on humans. Nephilim were halfbreeds so who knows what alien part of them it worked on.

  He had done his research and it made him wish for Brian. Brian had always been the one to find secrets no one else could. Montana was a leader of troops; Brian was in research and development. That man knew h
is way around a library and laboratory. 'Had known', at least. Montana had a harder time of it. The Paion had offered access to all of their records once they heard that a female Nephilim had come into existence and destroyed one of their cells. They wanted her dead quickly before any more of her kind were made. She was the first recorded female and she marked the beginning of the end. Her kind would grow in number and power. She and her two 'sisters' would take over this world.

  Montana wasn't sure how much of the prophesies he believed in. Sure there were things in this world that were supernatural but the rantings of ancient women were a little too steeped in superstition and religion for his tastes. He had only found a little out about the DakuAhu because it was linked to a woman named Ereshkigal who kept coming up in his research. He had been careful not to request much information on the weapon that didn't have Ereshkigal as it's main subject. He didn't want anyone, especially the Paion who could take it from him, to know he had possession of such a thing.

  In the end it wasn't the research that had revealed it's secrets. The DakuAhu spoke to him for the first time after cutting that man. He was just a random man who had angered Montana. He wasn't what the dagger thirsted for. The message became clearer with every coat of blood. It wanted the life of witches. It wanted him here in this horrible little town. It wanted Montana to open a window. It wanted Nephilim and Akhkharu alike.

  Even with it on him at all times, he couldn't work up the courage to confront a Nephilim. He didn't feel ashamed about that either. He had survived some of the nastiest battles of this generation during his duty with the army. He had faced death more times than he could remember. It wasn't cowardice; he knew what they could do. If that girl down there with the talking tree was like the woman in Austin, she could easily kill him with barely a thought.

  The DakuAhu wanted her blood.

  Montana backed away silently, never taking his focus off of her through his night vision binoculars. He was only a mile away. He could attract their attention from here with a wrong step. He needed to talk to those three boys again. They would be his connection to the girl and possibly his distraction. They would let him get close enough to feed the DakuAhu.

  ***

  The woman at dispatch practically jumped on him as soon as Sheriff Stout sat down at his desk. She never did that. He frowned at her. She knew better.

  “Was it a bear?” She asked, her eyes wide.

  “No, just a deer.” He flipped on his computer monitor.

  “It didn't sound like a deer caused that wreck. 911 played me the recording. The man said it was a bear or giant wolf. Just like all the other calls.” He just looked blankly at her. She pointed to his desk. “Two more came in while you were out.”

  He waived her out. “This wasn't related to the bear pack sightings. It was just a deer. Saw it myself.”

  “They're not just sightings anymore. Ol' Jameson lost two head 'a cattle. They's chewed up, insides all eaten. His place is close to the accident sight, ain't it? Out there by the highway?” She tried to help him see how what he was saying didn't make any sense.

  He just stood and walked past her. “Better go see about Jameson,” he said as he took his hat back off the peg. Jameson was a major contributor to his last campaign and expected a certain amount of preferential treatment from the sheriff he helped elect.

  ***

  The trailer was closer to the tree site but Tara Kay didn't really want to take Hurrit or Oren there. She wasn't positive Oren would fit through the door anyway. After changing from tree form back to what she considered his normal look, Oren was nude. Hurrit either didn't notice the nudity or he had no problem with it. Even so, she was under dressed for company. While the two men talked quietly in a foreign language, she grabbed a pair of jeans and a bucket of ice from the trailer. She led the way back toward the stone house.

  It wasn't really in any shape for company either but she only had two places to choose from. The trailer was out because of size so the stone house was her only choice. It had no running water or electricity, but she had some sun tea in jars on the porch. She could at least offer everyone some iced tea when they got there.

  As they approached the house, Kay stopped and stared in open-mouthed abandon. The roof was solid again, covered not with shingles but thatched, and the collapsed right side was repaired. The house had not looked this sturdy since, well never. It looked better now than it did in the pictures of Papaw and Mamaw when they were just Dean and Cathleen.

  Hurrit's caramel voice eased her out of her shock. “Sarrum Arakiel repaired it while you worked tonight. He knows how much it means to you and wanted to give you something. A gift as thanks for waking him from his slumber and accepting him under what must be hard to comprehend circumstances.”

  She knew he meant Oren even though he called him Sarrum Arakiel. So that was his name. So odd. When she turned to talk to Hurrit, she caught him staring at her neck. She didn't make anything of it, after all she was quite used to men staring at her breasts when they thought she wasn't looking, but Hurrit seemed embarrassed. He also seemed unwilling or unable to tear his gaze away from her pulse. “How did Sarrum do it so quickly? And all alone?”

  “Sarrum Arakiel accomplished this so quickly with the help of his magic and his mother earth's aid.” A sound of displeasure from behind him prompted Hurrit to say, “He wants you to continue using the name you gave him. It pleases him.”

  “But what's his real name?”

  “The true name of a Nephilim is their most highly guarded secret. I only know him by his title and surname. He is Sarrum Arakiel Maru to me and all his children. That means King, son of Arakiel.”

  Tara Kay might be a pagan but she had grown up in the bible belt. She knew what a Nephilim was. “So Oren is king, bred from a human women and a fallen angel named Arakiel, who has magical powers in addition to being able to turn himself into a tree AND he has kids of his own. Fucking hell.”

  Hurrit smiled at her and she felt a little lost in his liquid obsidian eyes. “Yes. And no. I will explain everything as he wants you to understand it.” Staring at her, his face lost it's smile and his eyes went back to her throat. He looked thirsty.

  Tara Kay had been so long without house guests that she'd forgotten her manners. “Of course. Come in and make yourself at home. I'll pour us some tea if you'll bring it in off the porch for me.”

  Oren grabbed the jar and opened the door for her. Hurrit answered before she's had time to ask, “He understands every word you say. He will be able to speak English soon enough. He could speak haltingly now but he doesn't wish to speak until he is sure he won't sound ignorant.”

  Kay barely heard him. She was staring at the living room of her childhood home. The wooden floor had long ago rotted out and it had been dirt as long as Tara Kay could remember. Hard packed from years of use, it had been clean or as clean as dirt could be, but now it was covered in low pile emerald green carpet. She slapped the ice bucket into Hurrit's stomach and then dropped down to all fours.

  She crawled into the house, running her hands along the ultra soft floor covering. Hurrit's gaze must have wondered in a way that displeased Oren because the Nephilim growled at his child. Hurrit walked around her and into the kitchen carrying both the ice and the tea. Kay looked closely at the new green feature of her family room. It wasn't carpet. It was moss. Thick soft cool unnatural moss grew inside her house.

  Oren sat in a bean bag chair that barely made a sound. It looked more like a puffball mushroom. He gestured that Tara Kay come to him. She did and he lifted her into his lap. She should be sleepy and tired after a full day of work but she wasn't. Not really. It did feel good to relax into Oren's embrace. He kissed the top of her head and tucked her below his chin. “For you, Sinnis TeRAkay,” he whispered in English.

  She could hear Hurrit in the kitchen. Clinking glasses and ice told her that he was doing what she had planned, serving iced tea. She took the time to look around at the other work Oren had done. All the walls were s
tripped away so that the stones were visible from the inside too. Interior walls were now made of stone too, thought they were newer and very smooth. The old moldy furniture and decrepit remnants of her childhood had been removed. Shelf mushrooms formed floating shelves where some remaining nick-nacks sat. The place was clean and bright.

  It was then that she noticed the light. The house had no electricity, having been cut after Kay's parents couldn't or wouldn't pay the bill. The lines weren't really safe anyway, having been installed by Papaw in the sixties. They ran on the outside of the walls, not hidden inside as would have been up to code. They were gone now, removed with everything else, but still the room was filled with light. A normal enough looking lamp stood on either side of every seat and an ornate yet organic looking chandelier hung from the center of the room. They didn't so much shine as they did glow. More mushrooms; had to be. It was a trippy world she lived in now.

  Hurrit called from the other room, “Your earth witch abilities far exceed any I have seen. This house is amazing. I wonder if you might be willing to come to my home and do a little 'remodeling'.”

  “I didn't do this. My grandfather built this house. Sixty years ago! It's been condemned since I was 14. It was one step above rubble this morning. Oren must have done it.” So this was what he'd been up to while she was stripping. This was what he insisted on staying for. It only took him a few hours too. “How?”

  “His magic works in much the same way yours does, I imagine. He speaks to the mother, communicating through his blood, and she answers with gifts of what he needs.” Hurrit came in with three jars of tea. He didn't know that her abilities were gone. They all three sat sipping tea. It was tasty, not as disgusting as the soda she'd tried to drink at the club, but it did nothing to quench her thirst and from the look on Hurrit's face it did nothing for his either. Tara Kay broke the uncomfortable silence, “So I'm a Sinnis. What's it mean?”