htm Hybrid Misfit (6 page)

The beast hissed and snaked a slimy tongue in my direction. “She is the seed of our destruction and now that I know her scent, I shall not stop the hunt until she breathes her last.”

“Then you’ve signed your death warrant,” said Gene shaking his head.

Simon didn’t reply; he acted. The other night, busy fighting for my life, I’d not watched Simon in action. What a mistake.

If it was possible, he seemed bigger all of a sudden as he charged the nasty demon. His shirt strained around muscles that bunched and rippled. I caught a glimpse of long, almost silvery claws, extending from his fingers that he used to slash at the creature.

My would-be knight and the evil villain battled, their weapon of choice: claws, which they wielded like a many pronged sword. The clicking sound and grunts as they jousted back and forth held me riveted, until I noticed Gene standing still.

“What are you doing?” I hissed. “Help him before he gets hurt.”

Gene turned to me with a look of surprise. “You don’t actually think that thing can hurt him do you?” He chuckled. “Simon’s just toying with him.”

I fumed. “I don’t care. What if someone calls the cops? Or the slime ball gets a lucky shot?”

“Fine, I’ll help, but just so you know, I’ve had a protective shield around us since the fight started to prevent any humans from observing.”

Really? I looked around, saw nothing. A growl brought my attention back to the fight.

With a flurry of slashes and pivots that at times seemed physically impossible, Simon finally struck a killing blow, one that made the demon’s eyes widen as it sank to its knees, black ichor gushing from the fatal wound in its chest.

I rushed over to Simon and hugged him while furtively checking for injury, thus did I hear the demon’s last whispery words—even though I wish I hadn’t.

“Protect her if you will for now,” it hissed. “But know we will return for we are Legion, and we will kill her before she destroys us all.” Then the light in the demons eyes went out, rendering them dark and lifeless. A swirling black mist surrounded the demon and with a gagging sulphuric stench, the corpse disappeared, taking my previous arousal with him.

Reassured Simon was in one piece, I stepped back from him and, placing my hands on my hips, I glared at both men. “Does someone want to explain to me what the fuck just happened? Why does a demon from Hell want to kill me?”

“The information you are asking for isn’t the kind of conversation to be had over dinner. Do you mind if we adjourn somewhere more private?” Gene asked with a creased brow that told me without words I wouldn’t like what they had to tell me.

I wanted the security and familiarity of home and family. While Claire was still at work, Lana was home and would provide an extra pair of ears. “Fine, we’ll go back to my place. I’ve got hard liquor to soften whatever it is you’ve got to tell me.”

“Huddle up then,” Gene ordered. Simon tucked me under his arm, his warm solidity reassuring. Gene grabbed us in a hug and in a shake of Jeannie’s pony tail we were outside my apartment complex. They followed me upstairs. I led the way, my arousal slowly seeping back as I walked up the stairs, conscious of my short skirt and the view I knew they were enjoying. What they had to tell me must be serious, because Gene didn’t crack a single joke.

We walked in to find Lana, with her feet soaking, watching Jaws—a favorite of hers. She especially enjoyed grossing us out by saying she’d do the shark if she could ever figure out how to change into her tail. Another siren issue she was dealing with along with Thalassophobia.

Her eyes widened as she took in my two companions. I smirked at her and gestured absently at them. “Lana, meet Simon and Gene. Our dinner plans got waylaid because of a run in with a demon.”

“A what?” Lana’s screech followed me into the kitchen where I pulled out a bottle of whiskey and poured myself a shot. I downed the burning liquor, before grabbing a few more shot glasses and carrying everything out to the living room.

Simon and Gene sat at opposite ends of one couch with a tempting spot between them just right for me. I bypassed the invitation and sat beside Lana.

I poured everyone a generous dollop of whiskey and raised my glass, saying. “Salut.”

My friends followed suit and we slapped our empty glasses down on the table. Fortified by the alcohol, I spilled the encounter with the demon to Lana, whose eyes grew rounder and rounder.

“Ah shit, Beth. That doesn’t sound good.”

“We’ll protect her,” rumbled Simon.

“Excuse me,” Lana said and I almost smiled knowing they were about to see why it was best to leave annoyed sirens alone. “But, first off, you just met Beth and I have a hard time understanding your motives in wanting to protect her in what is surely a deadly endeavor. Second, you both seem to know an awful lot about what she is and what’s going on, which I find pretty freaking suspicious.”

“Which we will explain if you give us a moment,” interjected Gene. He shut up though when Lana, with a high pitched, hummed note, glared at him. I snickered.

“And finally, exactly how are two guys supposed to stop the hordes of Hell if what the fiend said was true?” When the boys didn’t immediately answer—probably too cowed to reply—she let out a shrill whistle that would have probably caused a school of fish to commit suicide.

Gene winced at the strident sound. “Again, Beth, I must say your friends are interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever met a siren who lived so far from the sea.”

Lana blanched and I hastened to shut him up. “Ixnay on the biggay water thingy,” I said in very poor pig Latin. I think the finger drawn across my throat with the accompanying gurgle sound got the point across better as Gene clamped his lips shut. Simon said not a word, but I could read the mirth in his eyes.
Okay, so my friends are special. It’s why I love them.
“Now stop stalling with the attempt at idle chit chat and fess up.” As queries went, I should have probably been more specific, but there was too damned much I didn’t know, so I figured any information was better than nothing at this point.

“Where would you like me to start?” Gene asked. “You heard the prophecy. The demon thinks you might be the one mentioned in it and wants to kill you. What I don’t understand is how you don’t know about the message?”

“Humor me,” I said not willing to get into why I missed my membership to the supernatural club. “Why is there such a hoopla about some stupid message? Did it never occur to them that maybe someone was playing a joke—a really mean one?”

Gene appeared shocked at what I thought was a reasonable question. “You’re a creature of both light and dark, even if raised by only one side, you would know the message carved using the words of creation themselves; a power beyond even the Lord of Light and Dark means serious business.”

I squirmed. Their assumption that my state of being came from natural means made me uncomfortable, but exactly how should I explain my creation at the hands of mad scientists? I hedged. “So what if some unknown super dude posted a message? I still don’t understand why that demon and his friends want to kill me. And what’s this about cleansing others like me?”

“About two thousand years ago, when the words appeared on the walls around Heaven and Hell, there was panic. The forces for good and evil, fearing the end was nigh, set out to destroy those they believed the prophecy spoke of.”

“The cleansing?” Lana interjected.

“Exactly, “said Gene with a sage nod. “All Nephalim, whose blood by birth contained the seeds of both good and evil, were destroyed, hunted down like the vilest of vermin and eliminated. Once the world and the various realms were cleansed of their presence, a ban on matings between angels and demons was put in effect with the verdict of immediate death if anyone chose to ignore it.”

“So I’m a Neflim?” I replied scrunching up my nose at the awkward name.

“How can you be so ignorant of your own history?” Simon asked in a wondering tone, but I could read Gene’s confusion. The moment of my outing fast approached.

“Well, I was raised by humans,” I said releasing a bit of the truth.

“Ah, that would explain a lot. Your mother must have been an angel forcefully seduced by a dark one. Giving you up would have been her only option to let you live. I guess your upbringing explains why you seem so human.”

I fidgeted at his mistaken assumption. “Isn’t there any other way for me to have gotten my powers?”

Gene frowned at me. “Anything other than birth would be unnatural.”

I almost snorted.
Unnatural, that’s funny coming from a genie.
I drew in a deep breath and decided the time had come to reveal my dark secret. I just hoped they wouldn’t regard me as some kind of Frankenstein creation.
Although, I wouldn’t blame them, because there are times when I cry because of what was done to me.
“What if I was created?” I whispered the words, ashamed and afraid of their reaction.

“What do you mean, created?” Simon looked at me in confusion, but I could see dawning understanding—and horror—on Gene’s. Those looks were quickly followed by pity.

So much for thinking I’d be accepted and find answers to who I was. Even among the freaks, I was an outcast. Angry at the pill Fate force fed me, I decided to wipe the pity off their face. “You want to know who I am? What made me into a monster?” I smiled at Simon, and in a nonchalant tone that bordered on sarcastic to hide my anger and bitterness, I told them my tale.

“I was born human, and by the age of seven, I was sick, really sick with leukemia. The doctors, as soon as they diagnosed me, didn’t give me long to live. They hadn’t counted on my mom and dad though. My mom ended up being a close marrow donor match, and she donated to the point she jeopardized her health. Not that she cared. She just wanted me to survive.” I blinked back the tears that always brimmed when I thought of the woman who’d birthed and loved me. I missed her so freaking much even though she’d died years ago—killed because of her love for me. “My parents also turned to religion and prayed almost constantly. They stayed abreast of all the latest research, but leukemia is a killer and by the time I hit sixteen, bald as the day I was born, I’d just about given up the fight to live. And that was when my parents got the offer.”

Oh, how I remembered their excitement. “A chance,” they’d crowed gleefully even if that chance was experimental. And free of cost, a golden egg to loving parents who’d given everything they had to pay for my survival.

Gene and Simon watched me with rapt expressions, not interrupting me. Lana, at my side, gripped my hand tight, already knowing my story. I gave them what they wanted to hear even as I knew my story would make them turn from me in disgust—/the demon was right. I am an abomination/.

“They flew us and other families in the same situation like we were celebrities—first class. Everyone was still so happy at that point. We were taken to a top secret facility, government owned and operated.” I jumped up and stood, pacing in front of the couch as I waved my arms. “Welcome one, welcome all, to building nine where children are mutated as you wait. Hey mom and dad, have some coffee and cookies while you talk with the other parents. Be blinded by our façade while we inject your precious darlings with a toxic cocktail.” I mocked the start of my torture, my mechanism for fighting the tears that threatened to choke me. “But as it turns out, while we were receiving our first doses of the vaccine that would change our life, our parents went through their own life changing episode. The institution laced their food with cyanide and killed them all. Not that many of us had time to notice or care, we were too busy dying.” I spoke stonily, fighting the screaming despair that remembering brought.

Simon’s face registered shock and I stopped him before he could voice his query. “How could they, you say?” I laughed bitterly. “They thought they were doing something for the greater good. After all, we were sick children and our parents, unfortunate victims in their narrow sighted struggle for greatness. They told the public they died in a plane crash to avoid scrutiny and as far as the world knew, we died with them.”
What I still didn’t understand was why us? Why sick youngsters? Why weren’t our parents experimented on as well? What made us so special?
Years later, I still hadn’t found the answer.

Simon bounded off the couch, his body tense and he let out a roar that no human throat could have uttered. I gaped at him, once again wondering just what he was. The demon had called him something, but English was my one and only language.

“What did they inject you with?” Gene asked in a soft voice drawing my attention away from the pacing Simon and setting me back on track.

“Ooh, all kinds of good stuff.” At Gene’s stern look, I sobered up. “The government managed to capture a demon and an angel.”

I heard a thump and a crack and turned to see Simon pulling his fist out of the wall—a solid brick wall which now had a hole of crumbled dust. If they were still talking to me after discovering my dirty secret—and I was beginning to think they would by their reaction—I’d have to find out once and for all just what Simon was. “According to the doctors, who liked to brag, they performed all kinds of tests on their captured prizes. They were fascinated by their ability to heal and regenerate damage. They tried to inseminate human women with their sperm, but it didn’t work.”

Gene shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t have. Special conditions need to be met for their seed to take in a human receptacle, and even then, the pregnancies rarely come to fruition.”

I made a mental note to ask him more about angels and demons later. It was sure to be an interesting conversation. But first, I needed to finish my tale. “They decided to up the ante and inject humans directly with the genes. They couldn’t just start picking people up willy-nilly, so they came up with a fabulous plan to use sick children, to have their own parents volunteer them. Thus did the drug trials start with us as the guinea pigs. There were three groups. Those injected with demonic blood. Those with angelic. And then the ones who got both. Most of their test subjects went into seizures and died. They were the lucky ones.”