***
Omar stared at the gold and lapis lazuli ring in his hand. After Duke secured Omar’s reluctant agreement to act as guard dog over the Tablets, he’d pulled the ring off his finger and dropped it on the table. It lay heavy in Omar’s hand, smooth and warm. The power that emanated from it was so pure, so magnificent that he wondered why it didn’t burn his demon’s soul to a pile of dust.
Night had fallen and the bar sat empty. He’d turned off all the lights after Duke zapped himself off to gods-only-knew-where to begin his efforts to stop the resurrection of the she-dragon herself. The pale light of the moon slanted through the crooked blinds at the windows, glinting off the blue stone. That pretty, blue chunk of lapis lazuli, it turned out, was the Tablets of Destiny. Nothing in any part of the mythos suggested that the Tablets were anything but actual tablets. Hell, the Sumerians were known for their cuneiform clay tablets. Omar curled his fingers around the piece of jewelry.
“Here we go again.” Omar sighed and tried to rub away the tracks of stress etched into his brow.
Imhullu. It was a name he’d not been called in centuries. A name that represented a past he’d been running from forever.
Not that he regretted helping Duke—or Marduk as he was known at the time. Tiamat had gone completely around the bend, her need for vengeance surpassing rationality. He’d been created out of that desire for vengeance, but he was defective. Unlike the other eleven chaos monsters she’d birthed to exact her revenge—a motley crew of scorpion men, merpeople, serpents, chaos demons and lion-men--he’d been given a little something extra, a conscience or freedom of will that the others lacked. When it came down to it, he’d failed his duty as a soldier, disobeyed his orders, ignored his purpose, and gave his support to Marduk, the other gods’ champion. He’d gone into the battle expecting to Tiamat or her monsters of chaos to destroy him. Instead he and Marduk vanquished the Ummu-Hubur and her remains created Earth and the humans who inhabited it. It was a win-win, right?
Not quite. Destroying his creator destroyed something in him. The betrayal of his life’s purpose, and the disloyalty to his eleven other monster-brethren ate at him. Because of it, he supposed he had what the modern shrinks would call “control issues.”
During the many long years of his existence, he’d done his best to forget the past, forget his roots. Unfortunately, despite being as old as dirt—or maybe because of it—he never forgot. Immortality, despite how Hollywood and paranormal romances glamorized it, sucked. Living forever did not equal unsurpassed wealth or sexual prowess. Living was living, as simple as that. Less simple was living as a demon. While he could maintain a human form with ease, he had to shift into demon form with strict regularity. Going too long as a human caused the storm inside him to rage out of control—and with the technological advances of the modern age, it was hard to hide an eight foot tall beast with mottled grey skin traveling on a cyclone and trailing fiery bolts of lightning in his wake.
No, all immortality gave him was time to reflect on his successes, which, given his species, were more failures. Making friends, too, proved to be a wasted effort. He didn’t age. Despite the tunnel vision most humans seemed afflicted with while running through their day-to-day lives, they tended to notice a little thing like looking like a thirty year old man for twenty years. He moved a lot. It was too hard to do what was needed when one became too attached to something or someone.
In the end, Omar was a bitter, lonely, defective demon who kept to himself and Duke was to blame. Then the piece of crap came back after years—it had been at least two centuries since he’d last checked up on Omar—to pull him into yet another fight.
He was a demon, damn it. He shouldn’t care if Tiamat rose and destroyed humanity and all those who were party to her destruction. His death was the worst that could happen and that didn’t much matter. He didn’t have anything or anyone tying him to this existence.
The bells over the entrance to the VFW rang as someone pushed the door open, ushering in a cold breeze. “Omar? Are you in here? Why are all the lights out?” The sweetest voice and the loveliest scent he’d ever known floated through the room making him want to roll around in it like a puppy in the grass.
Lia. He shoved Duke’s ring in his pocket and stood up. Perfect timing. Of all the people—all the women—Omar had ever known, Lia was the first to get past his defenses, to burrow under the walls he erected to keep people out. Tiamat’s return would mean the death of Lia. Even the vaguest thought that someone or something would snuff out Lia’s sweet innocence and naïve joy in life brought forth the beast within him. He was grateful for the darkness as he fought to hold back the thunder building in his chest.
“Hey,” he said, walking to the wall and flipping the lights on. “Sorry about that. I had to run out a bit ago and locked everything up. I just got back and hadn’t gotten around to turning everything back on.”
Lia shrugged out of her coat and hung it on a hook in the tiny office in the corner. “No problem. I was just a little surprised. I knew we had that members’ meeting scheduled for tonight.” She shook the snowflakes from her hair before she pulled a rubber band out of her pocket and pulled the auburn mass into a careless ponytail. He watched her from the corner of his eyes, tracking each graceful movement. He loved watching her. She was a tiny little thing, and full of energy. She was completely without guile or artifice, fresh and open. Her clothes were simple—jeans, a soft wool sweater—and her face was free of make-up.
Omar slipped a dollar bill out of his wallet and set it on the bar in front of her. She grabbed the cash from the bar and grinned at him. “Any requests?”
He just shook his head and got to work prepping the bar for the crowd that would be there shortly. She glanced over her shoulder as she walked to the ancient jukebox. Since he’d started working there three years ago, she’d done the same thing. She’d choose a couple of songs on the jukebox to get the evening started. She loved the VFW members, but declared that they had horrible taste in music. “Honestly,” she told him once, “based on what they play, you’d think they haven’t heard a new song since 1971.” It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the music she chose always reflected her mood, and he collected these little insights and held them close to himself like a shameful secret.
She slid the dollar into the slot and flipped through the choices. She shot him a considering look before selecting her songs. She came back to the bar, tying her apron around her waist as the first beats of the song started. Toby Keith’s Don’t Kiss Me Like This floated through the air. Only years of careful restraint kept Omar from reacting. She usually played upbeat songs or ridiculous songs in an attempt to earn a comment from him. The day before she’d played and danced to the Macarena. So what was the significance of a romantic ballad about friends teetering on the edge of romance?
She didn’t meet his eyes as she started to prep the garnishments for the evening’s cocktails. The astringent scent of lemons assaulted his nose as she sliced the yellow fruit with deft movements of the knife.
Omar tried to focus on the mundane responsibilities at hand and not on the music, but his body jerked as the second song began to play. Neon Trees’ Animal. It seemed like the edgy voices were speaking directly to him when the lyrics “I kind of want to be more than friends” came out of the jukebox’s ancient speakers. His gaze darted to Lia’s. After a prolonged look, she lowered her eyes and fumbled with the box of tiny plastic swords she was preparing to skewer into olives. Her hands gripped the flimsy cardboard hard enough to dent the corners. She took a deep breath. “Hey, Omar?” The words were hesitant, despite the resolve that stiffened her posture.
He fought the urge to jam his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Instead, he turned to the shelf that displayed the liquor and began to needlessly straighten the bottles. “Yeah?”
She dropped the swords, grabbed the gallon jar of green olives, and held it out to him. “Can you open this?”
A strange mixture
of relief and disappointment washed over him. A quick twist of his wrist had the top off. He watched her from the corner of his eye—a habit he’d long ago given up on breaking. Her face held an intent look, as though she were giving herself a lecture. He made sure he was facing away from her when she turned back to him.
“Hey, Omar? There was something else I wanted to ask you.” She moved to stand in front of him. She wrung her hands, seemed to catch herself, and clasped them together in front of her breasts. “I was wondering…I mean, do you think you… Do you want to go somewhere after work, coffee or something? I mean, if you’re not doing anything. Or, you know, if you’re not interested, that’s cool. I just thought….” Her words trailed off.
It was a good thing he didn’t need oxygen to survive since his lungs didn’t seem to want to work. Such a human reaction unnerved him. She was asking him out? His mouth dried and his tongue seemed to stick to the roof of his mouth. He reached into the low cooler to pull out a bottle of water.
He didn’t need to see the flush that stole up her neck and face to recognize her embarrassment. He could practically feel the heat emanating from her pale skin. She clenched her fists, knuckles white, and