Chapter 15
An invisible hand gripped Jasper’s throat, cutting off his airways. His fingers grappled with the force that held him prisoner. The comical-looking deity sneered from several yards away.
Mantus was a fearsome god—one that rarely made an actual appearance in the human post-Christianity world. If he was taking up residence in a gangly teenage boy in the Midwest of the United States, he most certainly had a good reason. Jasper just needed to find out that reason to exploit it against Mantus’s batshit-crazy wife, Manea. Something he couldn’t do if the god killed him.
A gust of wind stirred up, throwing Jasper across the room and slamming him into the far wall. At least the chokehold on his throat released. He scrambled to his feet, half contemplating running for his own life while the other half demanded he tackle Mantus and pummel him out of poor Billy—even if it meant killing Billy in the process.
“We can help each other out, Mantus.” Jasper doubled over, trying to catch his breath and quench the fire burning his esophagus. “We—”
“Silence!”
Despite knowing the pure evil power of Mantus, Jasper could not stifle a chuckle watching the god stomp over to him barely able to walk a straight line in the rail-thin boy he was wearing. Blood-red eyes narrowed on him, and another gust of wind tossed him into the opposite wall. This time, he landed head-first on the concrete floor. Pain and stars erupted behind his eyes, but sheer willpower had him push up to his feet again to face the monster.
“You always were a stubborn ass, guardian! Why don’t you cower in fear now like you did all those centuries ago on the field of battle? Am I not more powerful than the one who took your life?”
Mantus threw his head back to laugh, but Jasper rushed at him. They both crashed into the wall, sending everything not nailed down in the office shattering to the floor.
“Your bitch wife is simply that…a bitch! Neither of you inspire fear in me anymore. I work for a higher power than you can ever comprehend.” His elbow snaked around Mantus’s neck, choking off Billy’s airways.
Jasper hated to do it to the poor kid, but he needed the god to simmer down and listen to his proposal. He couldn’t do that if the damn deity were going on an ego-boosting power trip because his wife was stronger—and more feared—than him.
Where Jasper found the strength to hold the god down until he submitted could only be explained by divine intervention. Slowly, the fight went out of Mantus. He threw up his hands in surrender.
“All right,” he sputtered, “What’s your proposal?”
“WE, as in together, are going to find and deal with your wife, but”—Jasper turned Mantus around until he could stare into his eyes—“you cannot kill her, torture her, or anything else your sick mind conjures until she evacuates the vessel she’s currently using.” A long pause ensued. “Then, you can do what you want with Manea.”
“Agreed.”
“Well, let’s get to work. Now how do we track down the bitch?”
Jasper stood, offering his hand to help Mantus off the ground.
“You know, this would be more efficient if I had a stronger vessel. This”—the god gestured to the Billy-suit he was wearing—“although full of youthful na?veté, is lacking in the physical strength and speed I need for long-term sustainability.” His hands brushed dust off the front of the soiled blue and black plaid shirt, drawing attention to the skinny ribs poking through the material. “Why is it that only scrawny kids ever try to conjure me? Why not a solid, handsome bodybuilder or old-school Olympian athlete?”
“First, you’re going to leave Billy as you found him—alive and fully intact.”
Mantus frowned. “You didn’t make that a condition of my cooperation.”
“It. Is. A. Condition. Now.” Jasper snarled.
Blood-red eyes rolled upward until they disappeared. “Fine. But, as I was saying, I could use a new meat suit. And”—his eyes now roved up and down Jasper—“you do seem a more proper specimen.”
“Hell. No!”
Jasper realized it wasn’t actually a bad idea. He was a fine physical specimen, even if he did say so himself. With Mantus’s power in his body, Manea wouldn’t stand a chance. But allowing oneself to be possessed was always a horribly dangerous idea. Could he eject the god once the job was done? Or would his own humanity, and angelic aspects, be shredded by the diabolical presence of the God of the Dead?
No, he wouldn’t risk it. But it meant he had to endanger Billy’s life, because there was no way to know if the boy’s soul was still intact inside his body. The kid could be dead already.
Wait! Did Mantus just say that Billy conjured him? What the hell?
“Mantus…”
“Come on, don’t I at least deserve a Your Majesty?”
Jasper’s fist flew of its own accord, smashing Billy’s jaw. The boy was going to be sporting a few unexplainable bruises if he ever did get his body back. “No.”
The wind started to pick up again in the small office, spinning papers and a stapler around in midair.
“Cut out the theatrics, man. We don’t have time.” Everything crashed back onto the floor. “Answer me this… Why did Billy call you forth? What can that kid know about summoning spirits, much less a god?”
Another maniacal laugh burst from Mantus, filling the room with dense energy. “Dear man, the poor sap thought he could use Manea to trick the girl into loving him in exchange for a few promises of future sacrifices. Kid obviously had a thing for the occult and recognized the engraving on the walking stick. I doubt the pariah running this operation had a clue what she held in her hand. I suspect when things got out of control, and the girl was not delivered into his loving arms, he thought the same as you—to bring me in to rein in my insane wife before she killed everyone.”
Frustration flooded Jasper’s veins. Stupid kid! He’d chosen to fool with powers he had no conceivable way of controlling…all in the name of love! Frankly, that was the number one cause of errant demons being conjured and running amok. Ouija boards and spirits were bad enough. He’d spent at least a quarter of his existence dealing with similar circumstances.
But this time, Billy hadn’t called in an irrelevant spirit or even a demon. No, Billy had chosen to go all or nothing with two of the most dangerous entities across multiple dimensions. Bringing them into the human world, without the benefit of spiritual laws to hold them accountable, was tantamount to suicide.
Damn that kid!
Maybe he wouldn’t care what Mantus did with his Billy-suit when this was over, after all.
Jasper punched a filing cabinet that had tipped over against the doorframe. Damn it! No, he couldn’t allow that either. Billy might have been an idiot, but he still deserved salvation.
Through clenched teeth, he muttered, “How do we find Manea?”
“So, no new body?” The grin that spread up one side of Mantus’s face, crinkling his bloodshot eyes, sent a thread of revulsion up Jasper’s spine. “Oh, fine then. We’ll do it your way. But”—his finger popped up in front of his face—“once my wife is disentangled from the human, I get to decide what to do with her. You will not interfere between husband and wife. Even though you want her dead, I will be the one to deliver her punishment. You and your little girlfriend will go your separate ways.”
Snarling, Jasper nodded his assent.
“Just lovely. Then, let’s go. First, we’ll need to make a pit stop in Stull, Kansas.”
Confusion spread through Jasper’s brain. “Why Stull?”
“There’s a portal in a little boneyard on the outskirts of town where we can procure a couple of essentials to track Manea, and we can use it to speed to her location in a matter of seconds. Our very own highway to Hell.”
Securing his guardian blade behind his back, Jasper dragged Mantus by Billy’s thin wrist and stomped toward the door. “Well, no time like the present. Let’s hit the road.”