Earth Bound: A Hidden Novella Read online

  by Colleen Vanderlinden

  Published by Peitho Press

  Detroit, Michigan, 2014

  © 2014 Colleen Vanderlinden

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the author at [email protected].

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  More Books by Colleen Vanderlinden

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To my amazing readers, especially those of you who fangirled so hard over our brawny god of fire that I knew I had to tell his story.

  Thank you!

  Chapter One

  Heph watched the landscape pass as he sat in the passenger seat of the demon's big black truck. It needed a tune-up, badly, he thought to himself, but the demon was almost as touchy about his truck as he was about his woman.

  In other words, better to just keep his mouth shut.

  The neighborhood changed as they drove, from disaster-torn areas to well-kept ones, and then, finally to a main street so they could find something to eat.

  "I'm starving," Nain said.

  "I'm getting a whole basket of those sliders. Maybe two," Heph said as he switched the radio on, turned it to the alternative rock station. Kurt Cobain's voice came growling out of the speakers, and Heph sat back and enjoyed it.

  Nain looked over at him with a look of disgust on his face. "How can you listen to this shit?"

  "Don't let your wife hear you say that," Heph warned, and Nain snorted. "Besides, we can't all be stuck in the 1960s."

  "No, much better to be stuck in the 1990s."

  "Is it my fault the best music was made then?" Heph replied. "Yes, definitely two baskets of sliders."

  Nain shook his head, and they drove on.

  "Molly will be happy. You made an insane amount of progress in Hamtramck already," Nain said after a while.

  "Once that's done, I'll move on. Downtown is already being repaired, but East English Village is pretty bad," Heph responded.

  "Why didn't you tell us you were doing all this shit? I could have gotten volunteers or something. Why keep it a secret from Molly?"

  "Not keeping it a secret," Heph said, shrugging. "I'm doing it because I like to, and because these people deserve better than for us to leave their neighborhoods looking like war zones because some of us can't get over our fuckin' power trips."

  "So you don't want help?""

  "No. I don't need it." Heph looked out the window. The diner was about a block ahead. Would three baskets of sliders be too many? "Besides, people from the neighborhood come and see what I'm doing and they usually end up lending a hand."

  Nain pulled the truck into a parking spot in the front lot of the tiny diner on Eight Mile and they both climbed out. Heph looked around. The parking lot was mostly full, and cars rumbled past on the busy street. He breathed in, the smell of exhaust and hamburgers making him grin.

  Gods, he loved this world.

  He loped toward the door, pulled it open. Nain followed behind him, glaring around as if he was expecting an attack.

  "Nobody here," Heph muttered. "There's a witch somewhere around, but nothing we need to worry about."

  "You just don't want your second lunch interrupted," Nain said, and Heph laughed. As they made their way to one of the booths near the window, Heph heard a crash behind him, dishes breaking. He turned, and one of the waitresses, dressed in her black apron and white shirt, was staring at him. She was pale, and seemed unable to take her eyes off of him, despite one of her coworkers asking if she was okay. As he watched, she seemed to snap out of it, shook her head and started cleaning up the mess. Heph shrugged and turned around.

  He slid into the booth opposite Nain.

  "Will I look like a glutton if I get three baskets?" Heph asked.

  "Yes," Nain said. "But who cares?"

  "How many are you having?"

  Nain paused. "Two baskets, probably."

  "Three it is, then."

  The waitress who'd dropped the dishes after they'd walked in made her way over to their table, set tall glasses of ice water in front of them.

  "Can I get you something to drink?" she asked, and her voice was sweet. Soft. Heph looked up at her to find her watching him again.

  "Hello," Heph said, and a very pretty blush stained her pale skin. She had long mahogany hair, pulled up into a messy bun. Eyes the most arresting color Heph had ever seen, like warm amber.

  "I'll have Coke," Nain said.

  Heph shook himself out of it. "Same," he said, looking away from the waitress.

  "Okay. Are you ready to order, or do you need more time?"

  "I'll have two baskets of cheeseburger sliders. Fries," Nain said.

  "Three baskets of sliders and fries," Heph said.

  "To go?" she asked.

  "No. For here," Heph said, and she nodded.

  "Okay." She shook her head as she walked away, and Heph forced himself not to watch as she walked away.

  When he glanced across the table, the demon was smirking.

  "What?" Heph growled.

  "What are you, twelve? It's like you've never seen a woman before."

  Heph ignored him.

  "Do you want to know what she was thinking?"

  "Fuck, no," Heph said. "She's a witch. I know that much." He'd felt it the second she'd approached their table.

  Nain nodded. "You should maybe stop staring, though," he said.

  "I am not staring, demon."

  "Right."

  "How is it that queenie hasn't killed you yet?" Hephaestus grumbled, and the demon just smirked.

  They sat and waited, and Heph watched the small TV in the corner of the diner. The noon news was on, the latest reports of supernatural bullshit. As always, Molly's face flashed onto the screen. He glanced over at Nain, noticed that the demon was watching, too.

  "Man, get that bitch off the TV. She's everywhere now," one of the guys at the counter said loudly. "Freakish shit."

  Heph's fists clenched, and when he looked at Nain, the demon's eyes were starting to glow red.

  "Relax, man," Heph said in a low voice. "Fuckin' Normals."

  "I'm glad she is," the mahogany-haired waitress said, her voice wafting across the diner. "I think she's a hero."

  "She's probably the cause of the trouble in the first place," the guy argued. "Maybe she brought all these freaks with her."

  The waitress rolled her eyes. "Yeah. She brought all of them with her and then fought them off to protect us. That makes complete sense. All I know," she said, speaking over him when he started to argue, "All I know is that I've seen her swoop in and save people. And I know I sleep better at night knowing there's someone like her out there." She glared the guy down, and he eventually looked away. "You want more coffee?" she asked him, and he nodded.

  Heph and Nain exchanged a glance. "You can't get pissed off every time someone says something about her," Heph said in a low voice. "We all knew this would happen once she went public."

  "I know," Nain growled.

  The waitress came over and set their Cokes, two straws on the table. Heph looked up
at her. She seemed like she wanted to say something, started twice, then gave up and walked away.

  "I can't not get pissed off," Nain continued. "And don't tell me it doesn't piss you off, too. I saw the way your fists clenched there for a minute, like you were gonna haul off and hit him."

  Heph shrugged. "Still. Both of us have to get better about that. It's going to happen a lot."

  Nain didn't answer. Even though they'd all known that Molly going public made sense, they hated the way she was discussed.

  "It doesn't bother her, does it?" Heph asked.

  Nain shook his head. "You know Molly. She's been dealing with media speculation about her since she was eighteen. She's used to it by now, but she would prefer to be in the shadows." He paused. "What the Normals think of her is just about the least of her concerns right now."

  Heph nodded, glanced up to see their waitress watching him again from across the diner.

  Meghan stood behind the counter, waiting for Alton, the cook, to finish up with the multiple baskets of sliders for the two men at table eight. She tore her gaze away from them again.

  Well, not them, exactly. Him. When they'd walked into the diner, the insane amount of power that had entered with them had made her dizzy. It was almost hard to breathe. And while the second man was powerful, the other one was in a league of his own.

  Her hands were still trembling, and she clenched them at her sides. The argument with the idiot at the counter had distracted her for a second, but it wasn't enough.

  What the hell was he? She wondered to herself. She knew the Angel wasn't human. She knew a few witches and warlocks, and her grandmother was currently dating a shifter. She knew there were things that most people, until recently, knew nothing about.

  But this man? The dark-eyed, bearded, hulking mass of muscle at table eight? He was something else entirely.

  "Order up," Alton called, and she started arranging the baskets of sliders and fries onto a large tray.

  She started carrying it to the table, and the dark-eyed supernatural watched her. She felt a blush rise to her face again. She started setting the baskets of food on the table, the dark-eyed man watching her the entire time. The other man at the table dug into the food instantly with a murmured "thanks."

  "Thank you," the dark eyed man said. His voice was deep, kind of hoarse, but in a way that made her pulse race. He had a slight accent she couldn't place. She watched him for a minute, took in his dark, mussed hair, his scruffy beard, dark, heavy eyebrows. He wasn't pretty-boy handsome, she thought. He had a prominent brow, an angular nose that gave him a bit of a haughty look. He wore a pair of well-worn jeans and a faded Nirvana t-shirt, and she never would have thought that particular ensemble could be considered drool-worthy. Yet here she was.

  Drooling.

  It wasn't until one of her other customers called for her attention that she realized she was staring.

  "Sorry," she muttered, walking away.

  She took care of a few more of her tables, trying to force herself not to look toward table eight.

  And she failed, miserably.

  She headed back that way. "Can I get either of you a refill?" she asked, and the other man, the blue-eyed one, nodded. Her dark-eyed mystery man nodded as well. She noticed that two of his three baskets of sliders were empty, and he was at work on the third. She went and got their refills, then brought them back. He looked up at her again, and she started to ask him what she wanted to know. Stopped. Started again.

  "D'you need something?" he asked, voice low.

  "What are you?" she whispered.

  He smiled, and her heart stopped.

  She would have fantasy material for weeks, just based on that one smile.

  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said, voice teasing. It sent shivers up her spine.

  "Try me," she said quietly, keeping her eyes on his. "You're obviously not human."

  "No. And you are much more than you seem to be," he said in a voice quiet enough for just her and the other man to hear.

  "I'm a witch," she said, and he nodded.

  "And does this particular witch have a name?" he asked.

  "Meghan."

  "Meghan. It suits you."

  "Thank you," she said softly, thinking she wouldn't mind hearing him say her name under much different circumstances.

  And what the heck was wrong with her? This was so NOT her.

  The other man at the table choked a little. Her dark-eyed stranger glared at him, and the man smirked at him. "Tell the pretty witch what you are, Heph," the man said.

  "What are you?" she shot at him.

  "I'm a demon," he said. "And I'm married to the Angel, who you so eloquently defended earlier. Thank you for that, by the way."

  She stared at him. "Seriously?"

  He nodded.

  She glanced back at the one the demon had referred to as "Heph," and he nodded in affirmation.

  "Oh. Wow," she said. "And who are you to the Angel?" she asked the man.

  He smiled again. "A friend. Maybe a very, very, very distant cousin. Our family trees are a little convoluted," he said, shrugging.

  "Is she a god?" she asked well aware that she was ignoring her other tables and absolutely not caring.

  The two men at the table exchanged a glance.

  "She's a powerful being. She hates being called a god. She doesn't believe she is," Heph said.

  "So... you're like her," Meghan prodded.

  "Oh, for fuck's sake," the demon growled. "Meghan the witch, meet Hephaestus, the god of fire and fixing shit. Yes, that Hephaestus," he said. "Heph, she wants to jump your bones. Meghan, he keeps staring at you with a stupid expression on his face when you're not looking, and sometimes when you are. Can I eat in peace now so I can get home to my wife sometime this century?" the demon asked, glaring at the two of them.

  Meghan's face was burning. She turned without another word and headed to one of her other tables.

  "Well that was nicely done, asshole," she heard the dark eyed man (Hephaestus? That Hephaestus? Really?) growl at the other man, who didn't bother answering.

  She kept herself busy, dropped the check on the men's table, but otherwise avoiding it. There went her tip, she figured. She couldn't make herself go back there. Could demons even read minds? Or had he just guessed that? Maybe he was being a smartass.

  She was at the counter when they got up, and she watched the demon leave and Hephaestus walk toward the counter, bill in his hand. He walked with a bit of a limp that somehow made him look even more manly than he already did, as if he was a warrior who had been through battle and come out stronger.

  He held the bill out to her, and she wordlessly punched it in, trying not to look at him.

  "Thirty-two eighty," she said.

  He didn't answer and she looked up at him.

  "I am sorry about that," he said quietly.

  "I don't really want to do what he said I did," she blurted out, blushing.

  He nodded, a dark look crossing his face, and for some reason, she wanted to take it back. Then he smiled. "I figured as much. He's a newlywed and has the jumping of bones on the brain. Again, I'm sorry."

  She watched him. "It's not your fault. Is he always that brash?"

  He handed a few bills over, and she took them, made change. "For him, that was subtle," he said, and she found herself laughing. She glanced at him, and he was watching her. He smiled a little, shook his head.

  She handed him his change.

  Hephaestus took it, shoved the bills and coins in his jeans pocket. "Well. He might have been wrong about what you wanted, but he wasn't wrong about me looking at you. You are a beautiful woman, Meghan," he said, and her whole body went warm. "Thanks," he said, meeting her eyes for just a moment, then turned and walked toward the door.

  She watched him leave, climb into a big black pickup truck.

  "Thanks," she whispered as she watched them drive away. She shook herself out of it, wandered over to their table to start c
learing it.

  Under one of the baskets, there was a tip. So there was that, at least.

  Meghan shoved the bills into her pocket (way more than she usually got in tips, she noticed) and glanced toward the windows again. "The world has officially gone insane."

  When her shift finally ended, Meghan called a goodbye to the other two waitresses, Julie and Tina, and walked out of the restaurant. She wrinkled her nose at the stench of exhaust in the air, then glanced at the narrow bed of annuals the diner's owner, Renee, had planted along the parking lot side of the building. They were wilted, anemic-looking little things, barely clinging to life in the dry, compacted soil, baking with the heat coming off of the asphalt.

  She smiled a little.

  Meghan looked around, making sure the parking lot was empty. She let her power wash over her, strengthened now that she was outdoors again. She focused, and waved her hand as she walked past the flowerbed. She glanced at the bed once more before heading to her beat-up old Ford pick-up.

  The salvia was blooming, the petunias bordered the bed in undulating waves of purple blossoms, and the two ornamental grasses, one at each end of the bed, were now full, vibrant green.

  "Better," she murmured, nodding to herself. Then she opened her truck door, hearing the usual squeak and creak of rusty hinges, climbed in, started it up, and drove back down Eight Mile.

  Her work day was only really just beginning.

  Chapter Two

  Peace surrounded Meghan as soon as she got home. Her front yard made her smile. It overflowed with blooms: roses, hollyhocks, zinnias, lilies, cosmos. The wooden fence that surrounded the yard barely seemed to hold it all back, and her little white clapboard house sat behind the riot of color, a sanctuary. Home.

  But it wasn't the house, or even her yard that made Meghan's heart beat a little faster. She glanced to her right, down the block of formerly-empty lots now overtaken by what had quickly become a thriving urban farm. Her block was one of those that had been ravaged by fires and blight in the eighties and nineties, long before she'd lived there. Four houses and a little stone church were all that remained.