Cold Fortune

Chapter 3

"What do you know about Jonas Anderson?" Ezekiel asked.

His question seemed to bounce unanswered off the wall of his two-story log house. Yet in his mind another replied to his question.

"He's a level three Therianthrope, that means he can change into one of four different species and those four are set. We won't know what they are until we find him." The voice rang through the house with clarity and volume, yet there was no one else in the house.

"Any idea why he's here instead of soaking up the sun in Cali?" He shut the door behind him, throwing his light jacket on his ancient looking couch.

"No idea, but why do you humans do anything that you do, especially you males. I have found that there are only two reasons you do anything you do, woman, or money, and most of the time you get the latter only so you can get the former."

"Good point, I would have never thought of that, thanks. What I mean is, why come here. There is plenty of those two things in California. Why come up here where it's cold."

"There has to be something he wants, or he might have been called by a more powerful Nephalem. Who knows, all we need to do is tag' em and bag' em, right?"

Ezekiel stopped in his track, his head turning to look at the ancient sword on his fireplace mantel.

"I can't believe you just said that. I must be wearing off on you after all these years."

"Look, no one can be around someone for as long as we've been together without learning a few things from them."

Ezekiel turned and stepped up to his fridge. With the door open, he procured a bottle of soda and a ham sandwich he'd prepared earlier.

"You know what?" He asked to the air.

"What?"

"My life sucks."

"Your life doesn't suck, well not as bad as some people, anyway."

"Thanks a lot."

"Any time, I'm always here to help my human."

"Yeah, and it's because of that one fact that I have been alone for over twenty-five hundred years. I can't get close to anyone without worrying that you'll suck their soul from their body."

"Yeah, you're the one who entered that temple, the temple that your people told you was forbidden, why do you think they told you that?"

"I was just nineteen, I was a dumb kid out for a little adventure." He kicked his coffee table hard enough to slide it across the floor and into the wall.

"You were old enough to know better. What, do you think I've always been happy with this arrangement, being bonded to a human, being trapped in a pathetic piece of steel?" The voice boomed so loud the room shook, and Ezekiel was thankful once again that he'd bought as much land as he had.

"You're a Nephalem, what did you think was going to happen to you. Did you think you were going to rule the world some day just because you could shoot fire from your hands and change your form? You're lucky they just bound your soul to this blade. They could have consigned it to hell for all that you did before they caught you."

"But a girls gotta have fun sometimes, right?" Her voice in the room had gone sullen, almost innocent.

"Oh yeah, if you mean by fun killing and draining the souls of half a dozen villages fun, then yes. But the priests didn't see it that way, did they?"

"Bunch of tight, closed minded men that lot was. I bet none of them had ever got laid in their lives."

"But they were enough to take you down. They even had the power to bind your soul to the blade, didn't they?"

"They got lucky, that's all."

"Well, I sure didn't, I got stuck with a literal voice in my head."

"You must admit I have mellowed in our very old age. Either that or I just don't need to feed as much as I did when I was younger."

Ezekiel had to admit Morrigan, for the most part wasn't as savage as she was when he was first bonded with her. Back then, whenever he drew the blade, someone died. All they had to be was in his general area with the line of site and Morrigan would drain the very life essence from them, leaving nothing but a desiccated husk.

"Wouldn't that be nice? I would almost be able to consider bringing a woman back to the house, almost." He sat on his couch and took a bite of his sandwich.

"You don't know any women, I would know."

"Of course I don't, what am I going to tell them, oh hi, I was on the earth when Jesus walked on it, and by the way, don't ever try to look at that sword on the hearth, if you take it out of its sheath the spirit that's trapped inside will suck your ever soul from your body and I hate cleaning up after her."

"Oh, your being over dramatic. If you brought a lady friend back here, I promise to do nothing to them. I would think the entertainment value of watching you make a fool of yourself would out weight the potential taste, anyway." Morrigan's laugh was enough to make a grown man wet his pants, but Ezekiel had heard it so many times it didn't bother him anymore.

"So, what are we going to do with Jonas, if he can fly he's going to be a little hard to catch?" Ezekiel asked, trying to change the subject.

"If he's a shape changer, then he'll be susceptible to any earth binding or anything that would counteract change. If you were to cover him in finely crushed sand granite, it should negate him ability to change shape. If you would just let me take care of him, it would be much safer, and quicker you know. Why won't you let me deal with him?"

"You want to know why? I thought it would be obvious to you by now." He mumbled through a mouth full of sandwich.

"If I had known, I wouldn't have asked."

"Because I can't get a bounty out of a desiccated husk. Most police departments tend to ask way to many questions when you bring a body in that looks like it could have come out of a pharaoh's tomb. Not that I don't get enough questions most of the time, anyway."

The knock on the door caused Ezekiel to spill soda all over the front of his shirt.

"Who's out there?" He asked.

"Your lady friend, she must have followed us home, or maybe put a tracker on your truck. Oh, this is going to be fun." Ezekiel hadn't felt Morrigan this giddy in centuries, and he meant centuries."

"Fun for who?"

"For me, of course."

Ezekiel pulled his shirt off over his head and threw it behind the couch while he walked to the front door. He opened it to a very pissed off detective Daniels.

"What do you think you're doing?" She yelled as she barged into his living room.

"And what exactly am I supposed to be doing?" He asked, still standing by the door watching her begin to pace.

"The police report on Anderson, I know you took it so just give it back and I won't bring you up on charges."

"Me, I wouldn't take the police report, that would be unethical." Ezekiel pointed to his chest as if he was stunned by the accusation.

"Then what is that folder on your coffee table over there."

"Porn, I picked it up on the way back from the precinct."

"Yeah, right," she huffed and picked the package up, anyway. Pouring the contents into her hand, she grew red with rage.

"I knew it, I knew you took it. I should have you arrested."

"I did not take that report, that's a copy. I made it while you ran to the little girl's room. I hid the original at the bottom of your file drawer."

"I wasn't gone for more than a few minutes. How in the world could you have made a copy of that file and managed to hide the original before I got back?"

"Practice, years and years of practice."