Hell Is Coming (The Watcher's Series Book 1) (11 page)

“Fuck me,” Frank said in a quiet voice as he stared at the bag in the distance.

The Light Energy was pulsing strongly within me, almost like there was a whole other being of light in me trying to get out. I felt god damn invincible at that point. “Holy fucking shit! That was…awesome!” I could hardly contain my excitement. I’d never felt so powerful.

Frank was looking at me strangely and I asked him what was up. “Nothing,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone hit with that much power. No Nephilim anyway.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean only angels hit like that.”

“So what, I’m an angel now?” I said laughing.

“No, but…I don’t know. Not even your mom was that powerful.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it was just a fluke.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Either way, you still gotta learn to control it. That power is nothing without skill. Demons fight like motherfuckers. You have to learn to fight like a motherfucker too.”

“Like a motherfucker, huh?” I laughed, still high off my recent success.

“Let’s go over here and try some free-fighting.”

I followed Frank into the middle of the grass clearing where we faced off like two gladiators. Well, one gladiator and a girl who barely knew what she was doing. I didn’t much like my odds. “The object here is for you to learn to use your instincts,” he said. “It’s like I told you, everything you need to know has been hardcoded into your DNA. Nephilim are soldiers, it’s why we were made. You need to tap into that programming.”

Tap into the programming. Got it.

I adopted my fighting stance—hands up, fists held loosely, shoulders hunched, chin down. A wave of excitement rippled through my belly. I’d sparred before with Josh, but that was just play-fighting. I got the impression Frank wasn’t into play-fighting.

“Loosen up,” he said. “You’re too stiff.” He assumed a relaxed stance, his arms up but his hands open. “You use your arms to control the space in front of you. Walk towards me.”

I did as he asked and he kept me at a distance with one arm, circling around me as he did. “Always have your arms out front, controlling the space between you and your opponent. Use your lead arm to control and the back one to strike.” He threw a lightning quick punch, pulling it just before it smashed into my face. I couldn’t help but flinch. “If it’s a stand off, you hit first, don’t wait on them attacking. Use the element of shock and surprise to gain the upper hand. Hit hard, hit first and keep hitting ‘till the bastard is down. Got it?”

“I got it. Sucker punch them.”

“Yeah, kind of like that, but you have to set them up right. Talk to them, distract them, then strike.” He assumed his fighting stance again. “Alright—attack me.”

Excitement mixed with adrenaline coursed through me. I never got that sparing Josh because I always knew it was just messing around. This was different. This felt like serious training. I advanced towards Frank and threw a few punches to his head, all of which he managed to parry or avoid, seemingly with no effort.

“Again. This time with more intent—but be careful with that Light Energy. I don’t want to end up on the roof of the cabin.”

I smiled at the mental image of Frank flying back through the air and landing with a crash on the roof. I attacked him again, this time more forcefully, pressing forward with punches before switching to kicks. Again, nothing landed. It seemed that Frank was just too experienced to let anything hit him. The frustration and anger built in me and I did my best to keep them down—to try and remain Zen about things—but it was difficult. My aggression wanted to be unleashed. I gritted my teeth, went in again, this time using my lead arm to knock away his guard slightly before snapping a punch into his jaw. “Shit! Sorry Frank.”

He shook his head, moving his jaw around like he was making sure it wasn’t broken.

How many jaws has he broken in his lifetime, I wonder?

“Don’t apologize. Are you going to say sorry to some demon when you hit him?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Then don’t say sorry to me. Now attack me again. This time try to get an index. Try to touch me with your lead hand. If you can touch me you can hit me, even if you’re blind. Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Just close them.” I closed my eyes. “Now try to touch me with your lead arm. Once you do, hit me with your other hand.”

Feeling slightly silly, I closed my eyes and kept my left arm extended out in front of me as I tried to touch him. As soon as I felt him I struck with my right hand. “Awesome,” I said after I opened my eyes. “I couldn’t miss.”

“No, you couldn’t,” he said, wiping a streak of blood from his mouth. I was about to apologize again when I thought better of it. “Alright, you know what to do now. Let’s fight.”

For the next twenty minutes Frank and I fought. I did most of the attacking—trying to land punches, elbows, knees and kicks while he mostly defended, although a few times he hit me. The strikes didn’t hurt exactly but I felt shocked and stupid when they landed. Getting hit also stoked  my anger. “You have to be able to take the hits,” he said as we fought. “You gotta toughen up. You
will
get hit. You’ll get the shit beat out of you sometimes. That’s fighting.”

As time went on, I found myself catching him with strikes more and more. I was getting comfortable with the various fighting techniques, doing as he said, allowing my instincts to run the show. It seemed to be working. “What about defense?” I asked.

“There is no defense,” he said. “There’s only offense.” I frowned, unsure of what he meant. “By defending, you’re reacting to your opponent, so you’ll always be one step behind. You’ll end up overwhelmed and beaten. Even if you’re being hit, keep your attack going. Doesn’t matter what the other guy is doing, you do your own thing, blast through his attack like it isn’t even there. Always attack the attacker. Let me show you.”

Frank came forward. I blocked, parried, dodged, and moved, but he always seemed one step ahead and I ended up backtracking and nearly tripping over myself. “See?” he said. “Now attack back this time.”

When Frank came in again I initially covered against his strikes, but then straight away started striking back, not caring what he was throwing at me as long as I got my own hits in, which I did, pressing forward, punching, elbow striking until I finally threw a hard kick at his chest. White light burst from my foot and into his sternum,  sending him flying back at least four feet where he landed heavily on the hard ground. “Oh shit!” I stood for a few seconds in shock and amazement at what I’d done before I rushed over to help him up.

“It’s okay,” he said, sitting up on the grass. “I’m just glad I still have my healing powers. Very nice, by the way.”

“Thanks.” I smiled. “I didn’t mean that, though. It just happened.”

“Isn’t that what we’re trying to do here? Hone your instincts?”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

“You can’t give monsters any quarter,” he said, getting to his feet. “They’ll rip you apart if you do. Go in for the kill at all times. That’s also why we have weapons. The unarmed stuff is for when you can’t get to your weapon or for when you need to get the other guy off you so you can get to your weapon.”

“We gonna train weapons now then?” I got even more excited at the prospect of training with the swords I took from my mom’s lockup. Frankly, I was enjoying the training a lot more than I thought I would. I’d never felt so vital and alive, the Light Energy pulsing through me, reinforcing me.

“Sure, we’ll train with the weapons.”

After getting the swords and knives from the bag inside the cabin, I went back outside to the clearing where Frank was waiting. He had a wooden training sword in his hand, with two shorter wooden swords on the ground beside him. I gave him the knife and he explained it was a demon killing knife, that it was magically reinforced by the symbols carved into it. It would kill most demons apparently, or at the very least, hurt them.

He started showing me how to handle the knife, again using the lead arm to control space, index, grab, check and parry, the knife itself in the back hand, always ready to stab and slash. We spent some time practicing movements with the knife, slashing the air, stabbing forward, blocking incoming attacks and countering with the blade. After a while, the knife became comfortable in my hand and Frank showed me some of the vital attack points to go for, including the heart, neck, liver, and kidneys. “Anywhere that’s going to quickly shut down the body,” he said.

Finally we picked up the wooden swords. Frank took the long one and I took the two shorter swords. Once again he explained to me the mechanics of sword fighting, which wasn’t a whole lot different from the knife-fighting. Eventually, once I had learned how to hold the swords properly and what kind of movements worked best, we did some free fighting. As I expected, Frank got the better of me, his sword somehow managing to find its way past my guard
all
the time. I was still getting used to the weapons, but eventually I was able to land a few blows on him.

Soon I picked up the real things: my mom’s two short swords. Sunlight flashed off the blades as I slashed the air with them while Frank watched, correcting me on footwork and body mechanics. Pretty soon I was able to relax into the movements until it almost felt like moving meditation.

“You know how to practice now,” Frank said gathering up the weapons. “You just have to keep doing it. The more you practice, the better you get. As your mom used to say, the more you sweat in training the less you bleed in battle.”

“She used to say that?” I wasn’t that surprised.

“Your mom took it all very seriously. That’s why she was one of the best.”

Lot to live up to then.

“What about my dad?” I asked as we were walking back to the cabin. It was early afternoon at that point. We’d been training solidly for several hours and I was famished. Still full of energy, though. I could have trained all day.

“What about him?” Frank asked. We entered the cabin, put the weapons on the floor by the door, and went into the kitchen were Frank poured orange juice for me and beer for himself.

“How involved was he with all this?” I remember my dad being around most of the time, working from home as an accountant apparently, although that could have been a cover for all I knew.

“He pretty much stopped being involved after you guys were born,” Frank said after downing half a bottle of beer. “He was good in the field, he had skills. He preferred the books though. Doing research, finding spells, that sort of thing. He worked in the background a lot.”

“So he wasn’t an accountant?”

“No, he wasn’t.”

I shook my head. “So when were they going to tell us about all this Watcher stuff? How long were they gonna keep it from us?”

Frank shrugged. “As long as possible, I guess. They just wanted you to have a normal childhood like every other kid.”

“Yeah, that really worked out.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice, though I let it go straight away, not wanting to wreck the buzz from the training. “What about money? How do you guys live? I found a load of cash in my Mom’s lockup. Where’d she get it?”

Frank started busying himself chopping vegetables for some sort of stew he was making. “My father—your grandfather—was a wealthy man. He owned a few companies that did well. Money is never a problem.”

“Great, so we get paid to kick ass then?” I was only joking, but Frank threw me a look anyway.

“We get what we need, no more.” I left him to his cooking so I could grab a shower, as I smelled a bit ripe. “Shooting practice after we eat,” he called after me.

“Looking forward to it.”

After I showered and ate the beef stew Frank had cooked (which was delicious), I took one of the guns—Frank later informed me were Glocks—from the sports bag and went out the back with Frank. There another grass clearing, the tree line starting about fifty yards away. Just on the tree line there were three paper targets erected, like the ones you see at gun ranges. “Awesome,” I said, eying the targets. “I get to shoot at those?”

“Not yet,” Frank said. “Basics first.”

For the next hour Frank went over the basics of gun safety, showing me how to hold a gun, where the safety was, what stance to take while holding the gun. He made me dry fire for a while before allowing me to load any bullets into the Glock. “Do bullets hurt demons and monsters?”

“With demons we use iron-tipped bullets. They get hurt by iron. We have different bullets for different creatures, but iron usually takes care of most of them.”

After I loaded in a clip, I assumed the stance Frank had taught me: one leg slightly forward, gun held in the right hand, left hand for support, finger on the trigger guard, never on the trigger unless you’re going to shoot. “Just relax and breathe,” he said as I aimed the gun at one of the targets. “Squeeze the trigger as you breathe out.”

I centered myself and pulled the trigger, a huge surge of adrenaline hitting me when the gun made a loud bang and bucked in my hand, causing me to miss the target completely. “Shit.”

“Don’t worry. Try again. Remember, relax and smoothly pull the trigger. Don’t jerk it.”

I tried again, squeezed the trigger on the out breath, this time managing to hold the gun more steadily so I was able to at least hit the outside of the target. More confident, I fired again, and then again, each time getting closer to the center of the target. As I continued to fire, the gun felt better in my hand and after a while I was able to relax, which made the whole thing easier. Before I emptied the clip, the last bullet hit near center mass, not quite in the middle, but near enough. I smiled, pleased with myself.

“Not bad,” Frank said. He raised his own gun and fired at one of the other targets, rapidly squeezing off a full clip, every bullet tightly grouped on the center of the target. He lowered the gun, a cloud of smoke around him, and the smell of cordite in the air.

“Show off,” I said.

“Practice,” he countered. “Keep at it. I have to make a phone call.” Frank walked back to the cabin to make his phone call and I loaded another clip into the Glock and started shooting again, happy when all my shots hit the target. As I was loading another clip Frank returned. “I have to go.”