“Where did you learn to play poker?” Cain asked.

“Now, big brother, don’t worry. I can teach you if you want. Daddy, where did you pick me and Mama up?”

“Texas.”

“And what’s the name of the game we’re playing?”

“Texas Hold’em.”

“Now doesn’t it stand to reason that a girl who grew up in Texas, and happened to have been raised next to a bar, might have learned a little about poker?” She kept up the sweetness and light demeanor, which I think made it all the worse.

“So how much do you have?” I finally asked.

“About sixteen hundred dollars. The three hundred you gave me was seed money, and as soon as I could double that, I took a seat in a juicy 2/5 game. I’m gonna pick up another decent pot or two and then hit up the Pot Limit Omaha game they’ve got over in the back corner. It’s an uncapped game and the three seat’s throwing money away like a Catholic priest on a Bangkok bender, while the seven seat has had about seventeen Crown and Cokes and is falling asleep between hands. As long as I stay out of the way of the four and six seats, I should be okay. I can’t tell if they’re playing partners or just locals that don’t see any need to tangle with each other, but either way they aren’t the soft spots at the table. I’ll avoid them unless I’ve got the mortal nuts, and I figure they’ll take a shot or two at me because I’m a girl and then they’ll go back to the easy pickings themselves.” Her whole body language changed when she went on this description of the table. It was like a general talking about an opposing army’s strengths and weaknesses. And never once did she look back at the table to make sure she was talking about the right people. It was, to put it mildly, the damndest thing I’d ever seen.

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand a damn word you said, Baby Sister, and I’m real sure I can’t afford any poker lessons from you.” Cain said with more than a little awe in his voice.

“Well, are you about ready to roll? We’ve got about two grand between us now, and that’s enough to make some headway before we need to reload our funds. We might even have enough to get us all the way through this mess, wherever that is.” I was not very comfortable with some of the looks we were getting. Not that they were threatening looks, more like Emily was a piece of meat, and I get squirrelly where my girl children are concerned.

“Come back in two, two and a half hours. I’m just about done with this table, but it’ll take a couple of good hands at the next to get me where I want to be before we head out. And besides, you never leave while the game is good.” She turned to go back to the table and I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back, hard.

“Where did you hear that phrase?” I asked in a low, very serious tone. All the levity went out of her when she looked up into my eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she actually looked afraid of me. And frankly, I didn’t know better, and she probably was afraid of me. I loosened my grip on her arm but stayed right down in her face. “Who told you that line about never leave when the game is good?”

“A..a guy. He used to come in the diner. He taught me how to play cards. He’d flirt with Mom and play cards with me in one of the booths after school.”

“What was his name?” I kept my voice down but she could see in my eyes that something was going on.

“Luke. Why?”

“Nothing.” I tried to force my face back to normal, but could tell I wasn’t doing a very good job. “Nothing. It’s just that’s a phrase I heard a long time ago, but it’s been years, and I’m sure it’s just part of the vernacular now.” I was lying through my teeth and she knew it, but she could tell that I wasn’t going to come across with any truth right then. “Go on back to your game.”

“Are you sure? You wanna tell me what’s got you so spooked?” She asked. “Besides, now that you’ve got me rattled, I’m gonna have to fold every hand for the next orbit to get my head back in the game.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s nothing, really. Go on back to slaying the redneck dragons and we’ll be back in a couple hours.”

“Yeah, go rob the poor unsuspecting swamp rats, Baby Sister. Me and the old man are gonna go grab a bite and play a little more blackjack.” Cain put an arm around my shoulders and steered me towards the buffet. As soon as he saw Emily take her seat again, he whispered fiercely in my ear “Exactly what the hell do you think you were doing?”

We got a booth a little separate from the rest of the buffet and sat. I downed a Coke in one quick gulp and once the waitress was headed off for my refill I leaned forward. “You know who her poker lessons came from?”

“Yeah, the Morningstar.”

“Yeah. Exactly. That son of a bitch has been hanging around my daughter and I want to know why. Wait a minute. That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. How did you know who her ‘Luke’ was?” I leaned back as my son took a moment to figure out the best way to tell his story.

“Remember when I mentioned not liking to sit with my back to a door?” He started.

“Yeah, you said you were in Deadwood when Hickock got shot.”

“Yeah. I was sitting across from him at the table, and probably was about to lose my ass, because my two pair wasn’t as good as his when McCall came in and shot him.”

“What does that have to do with the Morningstar?”

“He was there, too.”

Tags: The Chosen

The casino in New Orleans is just like most of them, loud, garish and a little depressing. It’s no wonder Lucky feels so at home in them. I wonder what it says about me that I also feel very at home among the dropouts, the degenerates and the hopeless dreamers. But I’ve always like blackjack, and I count cards just well enough to generally make a little money without getting noticed by the floor guys or the eye in the sky. I sat down at a low-limit table and settled in to a nice six-deck shoe. Most people think you can’t count a six-deck shoe, but the reality is that it’s just a little harder. If you’re patient, you can figure it out. If you’re immortal, patience is one thing you’ve got in spades. The kids wandered around the slot machines for while as I got my groove started. I was up about a hundred bucks at a $15 table when Emily came back.

“Gimme a couple hundred bucks.” She said, holding out her hand.

“And why, pray tell, would I want to do that?” I responded without touching either the chips in front of me or the cash in my pocket.

“Because you’re taking too long and I can make us a lot more money a lot more quickly. So gimme $300.”

“How do you plan to make significantly more money than me, faster than me, with half our remaining money?” I was a little concerned. She had an odd look about her, not like she had a gambling bug, but like she knew she had an edge. It worries me when people think they have an edge over a casino, especially one that’s as close to water as that one was. I’ve seen people frantically trying to learn to swim after big winning sessions in casinos, but it can be difficult to learn new things with you hands and feet tied together. I ended up very soggy in that little adventure and didn’t relish an opportunity to repeat it. It’s a lot harder to find thugs in casinos nowadays, since they’re all run my huge multinational conglomerates, but there’s still the occasional neckless twit rolling around, and if I could avoid any interaction with them, I would.

“Poker.” She looked up at me and when I didn’t fork over any cash, she went on. “I’m a good poker player, and I read people very, very well. So give me one buyin and I’ll make us some serious cash. I’ve been watching, and these games are ridiculously juicy. It’s almost like these guys want to give their money away.” Now I’ve played a little poker, and I’ve played once or twice in the Delta, and the boys down there like to gamble. And they would never think that a little girl like Emily could hold her own, so even if she didn’t have a somewhat amazing ability to know what people were thinking and feeling, she’d probably have an edge. Couple that with her mildly disturbing insight, and I did what any right-thinking father would do. I gave her the money.

“Thanks. Now stay here. If you’re there with me it’ll singe my groove.” She walked off, and I saw her tying her hair up in pigtails as she went. Singe her groove? Really?

“They grow up fast, don’t they Poppa?” Cain was in the seat next to me at the table. I hadn’t noticed him there before and wasn’t sure how much of the exchange he’d witnessed.

“Yeah. They sure do. Did you ever have any?” I realized how little I really knew about my son, what with that whole wanting to murder each other for millennia thing getting in the way.

“A few. I had a few early, but they all bore The Mark on their foreheads, so I waited until after the carpenter did his thing to have any more. You know what’s funny? After they killed him, none of my children since had The Mark.
Funny, huh?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have thought he could have affected us, what with us being so much older than him and all.”

“I know. But it really did seem like something changed after his time. Like Father hit the reset button or something.” I’d never pegged Cain for the philosophical type, but people can change in 5,000 years I guess. We sat there for an hour or two pushing chips back and forth. I wasn’t counting cards much anymore, just chatting with Cain about our lives through the years. Basic blackjack strategy will keep you from getting in too much trouble, and after a while doesn’t really require any thought. I managed to get lucky a few times and pick up a couple hundred dollars when I realized that Emily hadn’t come back for any more money.

“Wanna go check on your sister?” I asked Cain.

“I thought she didn’t want you to singe her groove?” Cain asked with a smirk.

“Really? Out of all the people, do you think I would singe a girl’s groove. C’mon.” I colored up to a purple and a couple of black chips and walked over towards the poker room. Poker room is something of a misnomer, it’s more a slightly enclosed area with a rail around it where addicts can go smoke.

It took a little bit of eyeballing from the rail, but we finally caught sight of Emily, and when we did, Cain and I exchanged what could most charitably be called shocked glances. She was sitting at one end of the table, the only girl in a sea of fat, sweaty men, and she had a wall of chips in front of her that was impressive in its size alone, much less in the fact that it was made up of mostly red and green chips. I made a quick guess and figured she had close to $1500 sitting in front of her. She saw us watching, folded her hand and sashayed over to the rail to give her brother a big hug and me a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey boys, how did you do?” She asked with an altogether impertinent smile.

“We made a little. Looks like you hit a nice little lucky streak yourself, sweetheart.” I replied cautiously. I wanted to know what she was up to, but damned if I was going to give her the satisfaction of asking.

“I’ve had worse days.” She answered with a twinkle in her eye. She knew I wasn’t going to be able to resist asking, and as a matter of fact, I wasn’t.

“Where did you get all that money?” I finally blurted out.

“It’s the funniest thing, Daddy. When you have the best hand, they give you all the chips in the middle of the table. And if you put all your chips in the middle, and you have the best hand, you don’t just get your chips back, you get everybody else’s chips too! Isn’t that fun!” She even squealed a little at the end. I felt ill.

Tags: The Chosen

It was noon by the time we got to the police station, and the desk sergeant was glad to see us. Or more to the point, he was glad to see anyone that would agree to take Eve off their hands. We paid her fine, collected her belongings, including that ridiculously large bag, and waited on the sidewalk for her. It took about twenty minutes, but finally she tromped down the steps, grabbed her bag from Cain, and started walking off down the street. “Thanks for the bail money, kiddo.” She tossed over her left shoulder without breaking stride.

We caught up to her after about a dozen paces, and I blocked her path on the sidewalk. She stepped around me into the street, and kept on going. After a few fruitless attempts to stop her, I stopped and said “Go ahead. Keep running, Eve. But no matter where you go, there you are. And you can’t outrun you, no matter how far you go.” She stopped, and her head dropped. She slowly turned, and walked back to me.

She got right up in my face and said, in a voice dripping with chill, “Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck your archangel, fuck your new kid, fuck your latest love story, fuck your Choice, fuck living forever, fuck the rest of humanity, if that’s even what we are anymore, and fuck the Father.”

I didn’t know my hand had moved until her head rocked back with the force of me slapping her. She raised her hand to retaliate and I caught her wrist. I leaned in a got close enough that I could feel her breath on my face and I said in a low voice “You can say whatever you want about me, you can even talk shit about Myra and Emily. They can take care of themselves. But you will not disrespect our Father in my presence. No matter how you may feel about the mess we got ourselves into, no matter how much help we may have had from that douchebag angel, he is still our Father, our Creator, and he deserves your respect. “ I kept right on going without giving her a minute to get a word in.

“Now get your head out of your ass for a minute. There is something going on here that is bigger than both of us. I don’t understand it completely, and I’m not going to pretend for a minute that I trust Michael, but right now, we need him. I’ve got a real bad feeling about whatever this Choice is, and if we’re gonna get through this, I need people with me that I can count on. And you’ve always been at the top of that list. No matter what’s happened over the years, I know deep down you still care about me, and I will always, always care about you. And that’s the kind of backup we need.”

She stood there for a long moment before she looked up at me, nodded, then said to Cain “I’m gonna head back to my place to pick up some things, and some different clothes. I can catch a cab back to your place, or you can wait for me while I pack. I can call in to work and tell them I’m quitting. They won’t miss me, always said I was high maintenance.”

“You? Can’t imagine.” I said, grinning at her. She punched me lightly on the arm and said “I’ll see you back at Cain’s. And tell the floozy I’m sorry I was a bitch.”

“I’ll pass the word.” She walked off up the street and I turned back to the others.

“Do you think she’ll show?” Cain asked.

“Yes.” Emily didn’t have the slightest hesitation in her voice, and I had learned to trust her when she used that tone. So I nodded to Cain and we headed back to his apartment.

As we walked, Cain looked over at me and asked “How are you set for cash, Dad?”

“I’ve got about six hundred on me. Why?” I replied.

“Because all my ready cash just went to pay off a drunk and disorderly charge on Mommie Dearest, and since I share your distaste for traditional financial institutions, I have a modicum of concern as to how we’re going to finance our little world-saving endeavor.”

“Hmm. That’s a good point. Em, I don’t suppose your mother won the lottery since I skipped town, did she?”

“Yeah, of course she did. That’s why we were both waiting tables. To keep it real.” She made some type of odd gangster hand signal, then laughed at the confused look on my face.

“So how much money do we have, then?” I asked her.

“Well, there’s your six hundred, plus about four hundred between mom and me, and Cain’s now broke, so that just leaves anything Michael and Eve have.”

“Since Michael has been an incorporeal ball of self-righteous energy for most of his life, I’m guessing there’s not much earning potential on his resume. So that leaves Eve. And that means we’re screwed.” I answered.

“What makes you say that?” Emily asked.

“Mom doesn’t believe in money. She keeps only the bare minimum to support herself and gives the rest away, usually to the most deplorable people she can find. She might have fifty bucks on her, and that would be from last night’s lap dances. There’s not going to be much in the rainy day fund at Casa Eve.” Cain answered.

“Alright then, I guess it’s time to make money the old-fashioned way.” I declared.

“Bash people in the head with a rock and take it from their still-warm corpses?” Cain asked.

“Tacky, son. Really, really tacky.” I glared at him.

“Sorry, Poppa, old habits die hard. So if larceny and skullduggery wasn’t what you had in mind, how exactly do you plan to fund the next leg of our road trip?” He asked.

“The same way I’ve supported myself for the past twenty years. Blackjack. Come on kiddies, Poppa’s gonna take you to the casino. If you’re real nice, I’ll give you twenty bucks to play the slots with.” I headed down to Canal Street and turned left towards the casino, my two children in tow. I looked back at Emily “By the way, did you bring ID?”

“Yes, Dad.” She sighed in the tone that twenty-something girls have used with their ridiculous fathers ever since I first had a twenty-something daughter.

Tags: The Chosen

I love the dreams about The Garden. It’s the only time I get to go back there, and those are the dreams I hate to wake up from. In this one, everybody was there. Me, Eve, Cain, Abel, Myra, Emily, all my children and wives from thousands of years, and all of Eve’s husbands and babies, too. I was sitting under The Tree watching Emily pose while Cain painted her portrait. She was sitting on a rock, barefoot with shorts and a t-shirt on, with a flower stuck behind one ear. Cain looked more at peace than I’d seen him in many years while he mixed paints on a little palette and dabbed a little yellow here, a little blue there, a swath of green over there. Abel stood behind his brother watching proudly, the love he had for his baby brother shining in his eyes. Eve lay on her stomach next to me, resting her head on her folded arms while she twisted flowers into a garland. We were at peace, all of us a huge ridiculous family, and even Lucky wasn’t looking to spoil anything. He just sat on a tree limb watching the children play. It was like his rebellion never happened, like Eve and I never ate the fruit, like nobody ever made any Choices.

Of course, just as I reached down beside me to take a drink from the frosty glass I had resting on the ground, I heard a voice.

“Alright, Sleeping Beauty. Time to make the donuts.” Sometimes having kids is a pain in the ass. Now try having kids that are thousands of years old. The whole respecting your elders thing goes in the shitter when your one of the oldest people in the world.

“Fuck off, Cain, we’re sleeping.” I mumbled.

“Unless you’ve got a mouse in your underpants, Poppa, there’s no ‘we.’ And since you’re swearing at me, you’re obviously not sleeping.” My smartass kid replied. Correct that. My eldest smartass kid. All my kids have had a wicked wit that I attribute to Eve. After all, that type of cynicism could never have come from yours truly. I then realized that the little shit was right, I was alone in the bed. That’s never an ideal waking situation, but it becomes even less so when you didn’t go to sleep alone, and had no real reason to anticipate waking up that way. I looked around the room for Myra, and heard the squeal of a water pipe as the shower kicked on to reassure me that I hadn’t been abandoned.

“Alright, darling child of mine, I am indeed awake. Now what can I do for you?” I rolled over to face Cain, who stood in the doorway already dressed for the day. He had gone native upon returning to New Orleans and stood in his flip-flops, white linen pants and a beige linen shirt. With his hair smoothed back into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck he looked like he could have stepped out of an Anne Rice novel. I envied him his sense of style, just a little. I’ve always leaned a little more towards biker chic myself, and I probably looked like Sam Elliott after a three-week bender given the few hours of sleep I’d grabbed.

“Well, Paternal One, I thought it might be a good idea for you to accompany me to meet mother for breakfast.” Cain replied, and there was something in his eyes that told me I needed to get dressed, and pronto.

“Where is she?” I asked as I pulled on pants and caught the t-shirt that Cain tossed to me. I reached into my bag for some deodorant and paused for a moment before I went over and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Just a minute.” I heard Myra call out from inside. I went in anyway, and closed the door behind me as I thought I heard Cain’s muffled reply. I stuck my head back outside the bathroom and said “Excuse me?”

“I said, she’s in jail. And we’re going to go bail her out. Now brush your teeth, your breath is peeling the paint.” I ducked back into the bathroom where Myra was just turning off the water.

“Adam, dear, I know we were close a while back, but do I really need to clarify that ‘just a minute’ does not mean ‘come right in and watch me shower?’” She said as she dried off. I did take a moment to notice that she really was a well-assembled woman as I squirted toothpaste all over the faucet.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She laughed as she said it and I remembered what drew me to her in the first place. Aside from the obvious attractions, all of which were on display at the moment, I loved her laugh.

“I’m sorry, Myra, I’ve gotta brush my teeth and run. Apparently Eve’s in trouble and Cain says we can get her to talk to us if we bail her out.” I brushed my teeth and tongue, and headed back out into the bedroom. I pulled on my boots and was just heading out when I heard Myra behind me.

“Take Emily.”

“I don’t know how good an idea that is, Myra. Eve’s pretty pissed at me for a lot of things, and she can be pretty nasty.” I started.

“Look. We all know how this works. I make a logical suggestion, you make unreasoned objections, and eventually Emily and Cain chime in, with the odd annoying aside from the angelic asshole on the sofa, and you end up doing what I say anyway. Since we’re short on time, why don’t we just pretend to go through all the tedious bits and skip right to part where you do it my way.”

“I make it a point never to argue with a MILF in a towel, so you win.” Cain snickered at that, Emily blew orange juice through her nose and Myra blushed all the way down to the tops of her breasts, which was where the towel started. She flipped me the bird and closed the bedroom door after herself. I headed for the door, and said to Emily, “Come along kiddo, you know she’s right.”

“When did you make up that rule?” Cain asked as we headed down the stairs.

“About ninety seconds ago.” I said.

“Ahem, Adam?” I heard from the balcony as we went out onto the street. I looked up and saw Michael leaning over the railing.

“Yeah, Michael. What is it?”

“What’s a milf?” and Emily, Cain and I walked down the street, laughing our asses off at the perplexed seraphim.

Tags: The Chosen

Chapter 4 (or whatever)

“Oh Hell, no!” Was the first thing I heard as Eve preceded me into Cain’s apartment. She whirled on her heel and ran smack into my chest as she made for a hasty exit. “I am NOT going to be in the same room as that self-righteous son of a bitch, and that’s all there is to it. I don’t know what kind of shit you think you were gonna pull, Adam, but I will have nothing to do with that angelic motherfucker. Period.” She continued to try to push past me as her diatribe bounced off the walls, and finally I bent at the knees, put my shoulder into her gut, and carried her into the apartment like a bag of dog food. A kicking, cursing, spitting bag of dog food. I deposited her in an armchair across the room from Michael, and stood between the two of them.

Eve quickly sprung up out of the chair, and I just as quickly pushed her back into it. “Sit.” I ordered, and when she looked around and took stock the situation, she stayed where I had put her.

“Michael, maybe this would be a good time for you to take a walk.” I suggested.

“Yeah, like off a levee.” Eve spat.

“Behave. Now, like I was saying, this might go more smoothly if we just ease into things and bring you in at the end. Whattaya say?” I smiled at Michael in my best let’s all be buddies smile, and was honestly amazed when he looked at me and smirked a little.

“No. I think I’ll just sit here and watch the show.” He said, crossing his legs at knee and settling back into the sofa.

“What?” Once again with my eloquence.

“I don’t get to observe honest human interactions that often, and this promises to be quite enlightening. I’ll stay.” He leaned back and sipped from a glass of ice water on a side table.

“You’re a dick, Michael. Did I ever mention that?” I said as I turned back to Eve and tried to gather my thoughts.

“Now, Eve. I’d like for you to just hear me out before you react, and especially before you do anything rash or particularly hard on the furnishings.”

“Thanks, Pop. Some of this stuff is hard to replace.” Cain said as he threw a couple of extra deadbolts.

“Alright. I’ll listen. But before we get going, can I ask a couple of questions? And I’d really like a beer.” Eve said sulkily. Cain went to the fridge, a nice vintage number with magnets on the front from hundreds of different cities all around the world. I guess a body needs some way to track the travels.

“Sure, Eve. What would you like to know?” I said, sitting on the bench in front of the upright piano Cain had along one wall. I kept a position near the door in case Eve decided to bolt, and between Michael and Cain, they had the French doors out to the balcony covered.

“First, who’s the kid?” she started as she cracked open a Blackened Voodoo on the edge of an end table that had obviously seen such use on more than one occasion.

“My name is Emily, it’s nice to meet you.” Em held out her hand and crossed to her, but Eve just stared past her at me.

“Who. Is. The. Kid?” she repeated levelly.

“Emily is my youngest daughter. But I’m pretty sure you knew that already.” I answered, looking Eve straight in the eyes. I figured this would come up, and we might as well get it out of the way.

“Well, it’s so good to see that I’m remembered. No offense, Emily, I’m sure you’re as nice a person as you could be, given your parentage.” She shook Em’s hand and the shaken girl returned to sit next to her mother on a love seat.

“I never forgot you, no matter how hard you tried to make me.” I said.

“But you didn’t hesitate to knock up a floozy in every town where you spent more than fifteen minutes, did you? Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t your sole responsibility to propagate the species?” She was starting to get nasty, and I knew that the venom would really start to flow in a few minutes, so I made an effort to abate as much bloodshed as possible.

“Emily, would you and your mother please excuse us for a few minutes? Eve, Cain and I have some things that we need to discuss, and you might not want to be around to hear them.” I knew the second the words left my mouth that I had made a tactical error, not my first of the evening.

“So this is the latest floozy? And what is your name, dear?” Eve turned her attention to Myra, and all my senses went on red alert.

“I’m Myra. And while I might be the latest, I think the one in the sequined thong might think twice before she calls anyone a floozy.” Myra crossed the room to Eve and extended her hand. Eve stood to take it, and looked Myra up and down slowly as the two women evaluated each other like prizefighters at a weigh-in.

I looked over at Cain, who shrugged as if to say, “I didn’t sleep with either of them, what do you want me to do?”

“Touché. I like this one, Adam. She’s got claws of her own.” Eve smiled at me and I suddenly thought I knew what that canary felt like when it caught sight of the cat a second too late.

“And I’m not afraid to use them, sweetie. Now you might have had him first, but I had him last. And if you want to exercise some prior claim, we might need to step outside and have a little discussion.” Myra looked Eve right in the eye and didn’t flinch. I’d never had two women fight over me before, and thought that might be interesting, if hard on the décor.

Eve looked Myra up and down once more and let out a long laugh before pulling her into a big sisterly hug. “Prior claim? Good Father, honey, I’ve been done with that one since before your ancestors crossed the friggin’ land bridge! He’s all yours, although why you want him is beyond me!” All my thoughts of the two of them in a wading pool full of pudding vanished with Eve’s laugh, but on the bright side, no one was likely to get kicked in the head while she was amused.

“Well. I’m glad we got that situated.” Myra said, looking a little confused as she sat back down next to Emily.

“You said a couple of questions, Mom. What was the other one?” Cain interjected before the evening could get any more surreal.

“You. How is it that the two of you are in the same room and no one is bleeding from every orifice?” She asked, looking from Cain to me and back again.

“We talked. A lot. Then we got drunk together. Then I think we might have gotten in a bar fight, or played pool, I can’t remember which. Then we drank some more. By the time we got sober, we were alright again.” I said. She looked at me for a long moment, realized that it was just stupid enough to be true, and took another long pull off her beer.

“I bet I’m gonna need another one of these before you get started on the rest of it.” She said to Cain, who went to the fridge for another round, and brought out a bottle of tequila and a couple of limes to go with it.

“Alright, spill.” She said after we all did a shot and tossed our limes over the balcony rail. Well, all of us except Michael, of course, who had another glass of wine. Prig.

“So I was playing blackjack in Las Vegas when all of a sudden…” I started, and recounted the whole deal to Eve, from my hauling ass out of Vegas to meeting Myra again, to punching Michael in the nose, to Cain and I trying to kill each other, to Emily calling us on our shit, to getting to New Orleans. There were a few moments where I was pretty sure she was going to try to kill Michael, and at least one or two real tears throughout the story, but we got through it without any broken furniture or bloodshed, which told me I was getting better at this sort of thing. The sun was coming up when I finished our little tale, and Eve looked up at me with eyes that had seen centuries of sunrises and said to me “Now what?”

“What do you mean, now what?” I asked. I was a little confused from the booze, the late (or early) hour, and the kick to the head.

“Now what do you want me to do?” she asked.

“I want you to go with us to find this guy, whoever he is, and be there when the Choice is made.” I was a little puzzled by her question, frankly.

“No.”

“Huh?”

“No. I’m not going. It was great to see you again. Well, not really, but that’s what we’re supposed to say when we see someone we don’t like to see because they dredge up too many bad memories, so I’ll go ahead and succumb to the social mores that I live nearest.” She said as she picked up her bag and headed towards the door.

“Wait a minute. You can’t just leave!” I grabbed her arm as she passed me and she whirled on me.

“Oh yes I can. Remember, I’m the fucking poster child for free will. I’m the one who made the last big Choice, and I’m not going to pass that torch to some poor schlub who has no idea what it’s all about. I can live with what I’ve done. Father knows I’ve had plenty of practice, but I’m not going to put that on anyone else. And if you think, after all these years, that I’m going to go dancing to the tune of some hoity-toity angel again, maybe you never knew me after all.” With that, she tore her arm loose from my grasp and headed out the door with the morning sun making a golden silhouette of her hair.

I watched her go, again, and felt the same sense of loss that I had all those years ago when she looked me straight in the face and told me she never wanted to see me again. She walked out in a blaze of golden hair and sunlight then, too. Eve always knew how to make an exit. I leaned on the doorframe as she walked down the stairs, and I felt a hand in mine. I looked back at Emily as she pulled me into the apartment.

“It’ll be okay, Dad. She’ll be back.” She soothed.

“I don’t think so. You don’t know her like I do.”

“I know more than you think. And I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen the last of Eve.” I just patted her on the cheek, kissed the top of her head, and went back to Cain’s guest room where Myra lay curled up in a sheet. I closed the door, turned on the ceiling fan, stripped down to my boxers, and lay down beside her for a few hours sleep. She grabbed my hand as I draped an arm over her side, pulled it into both of her hands, and wrapped herself around my arm. I smiled a little as I drifted off to sleep.

Tags: The Chosen

“Well, I suppose that went as well as I expected,” were the first words I heard upon waking. I took a moment to examine my surroundings before I opened my eyes. Head still attached, check. Extremities mobile, check. Lying on some ludicrously hard surface, check. LOUD wherever I was, check. I decided that since I was still alive, I may as well let everyone know it. I opened my eyes to see Cain and Emily standing over me, backlight by pink neon.

“Where am I?” I asked woozily.

“Really? Isn’t that just a stereotype? Do people really ask that?” Emily asked.

“They do when they wake up someplace that’s different from the place where they were last conscious. When you take into account the last time Poppa here was awake he was learning to fly, and doing a poor job of it, it makes a little more sense.”

“Shut your piehole, smartass. Emily, where am I?” I repeated, somewhat less woozily as the pain in my head and jaw started to blossom.

“Bourbon Street. Or rather, the sidewalk in front of Big Daddy’s. You were thrown out. Literally.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” I groaned and weaved a little as I started to get up.

“Whoa, tiger, where do you think you’re going?” Cain caught my arm and kept me from falling off the sidewalk into the throngs of people tossing beads and flashing bits of flesh.

“Back in there. We gotta get Eve.” I might have been concussed, but I was hanging on to that thought with a determination that made me
a little proud. Even after getting impromptu flying lessons thanks to a kick in the gob, I still remembered my primary objective. Kirk would have been proud.

“Wow. I obviously kicked you harder than I thought. I’m right here, asshole. Now before you try, and I mean try, to go back in there and get the shit beat out of yourself by Clarence, who is a very nice man and does not deserve any trouble from meddling immortals, why don’t you tell me exactly what the hell you want?” I wish I could say that her voice sounded like a choir of angels, but aside from the fact that I’d never been around angels in enough number to make up much more than a barbershop quartet, the sad fact is, it didn’t. It sounded more like really pissed off fingernails down a chalkboard. Only shrill.

“Hello, Eve. Nice to see you. Nice kick.” I said as I allowed Cain to turn me around and face Eve, who was leaning against a window into a shop selling Father knows what. She had obviously taken the time to dress, such as it was. She had tied her hair back into a ponytail, and wore cowboy boots even more garish than Emily’s that led to black fishnets criss-crossing her legs up to a black leather miniskirt. Ever the ironic, she had on a “Got Christ?” tank top that I was pretty sure didn’t look like that in Clerks 2. At least Jason Mewes had never filled one out like that. Apparently Eve only wore a bra when she intended to take it off soon, because nothing was evident under the tank top but Eve. Damn, she looked good. Trashy, but good.

“Thanks, I practiced for years just in case you decided to drop back into my life. Now, What. Do. You. Want? Asshole.” She appended just for good measure.

“It’s a long story. Could you just come back to Cain’s place with us and have a little coffee and Advil cocktail?”

“No. I don’t think I’m going anywhere but home. And you’re not invited. And then tomorrow I’m going to wake up, and I’m going to leave New Orleans, a city that I quite like, thank you very much, and I’m going to have to go looking for someplace else to live. Someplace with a few less assholes. Or really, just ONE less asshole.” She was starting to find her rhythm, and I knew that in a about two and a half minutes she was going to reach deeper into her vocabulary than just “asshole” for descriptions of me.

Usually, when faced with a woman in the throes of this type of blind, unreasoning hatred, there are a couple of things I try to accomplish. The first is simply to keep her from killing me, or inflicting a fair amount of pain in the attempt. The second is to keep her out of the public eye enough to keep the authorities from becoming involved. And the third is to reach some type of amicable exit strategy that doesn’t involve me being chased by large portions of a father’s segment of the Roman Legions (Yes, it happened. Yes, it was my fault. Yes, the Roman Legions can run very fast. Yes, being staked down over an anthill with honey spread over your genitalia is very uncomfortable. And most importantly, yes, everything grew back just fine. Sometimes I think that Joss Whedon wrote more parts of my life than Moses did.). In this case I was going to have to make do with the first two, so I did something to Eve that I had never done before, and there wasn’t much left that didn’t involve rendered animal fat and a blender. I used The Voice.

“No you will NOT. You WILL come with us and you WILL hear what we have to say and you WILL fulfill your duty to the Father and to all of these, our children.” It hurt my back a little to stand at my full height, and I was pretty sure there was broken highball glass wrapped around a rib somewhere, but I held myself upright and locked eyes with Eve. For the first time in thousands of years of our running into each other and having these little confrontations, she blinked first. She looked down and away, and I think I saw a glimmer of real surprise in her eyes.

She stood there for a moment, and then I saw her eyes spark back to life. She threw her head back, stuck her jaw out and got ready to unleash an absolute torrent of bile in my direction when Emily stepped in.

“Please?” That’s it. One word. All she did was look up into the face of her ultimate grandmother and say, in a very small and innocent voice, “Please?”

“Well…shit. Alright, I’ll go hear you out, but don’t think we’re finished, asshole.” She picked up a bag that looked big enough to carry a sawed-off shotgun, and started off down the street.

“I’ve never thought we were finished, Eve. Never.” I murmured as we followed her, my arm over Cain’s shoulder as my balance slowly returned.

Tags: The Chosen