Page 4 of Nazab

“I lost my towel,” he realized, coming to a stop beside her. Turning his back in an effort to shield his shaft from her view, he presented her with his perfect butt instead. “Here,” he said, handing the prosthetic leg to her.

“Thanks,” Monica said, then put it on the ground. She rolled her jeans up and quickly reattached the contraption to her leg. Rolling her jeans down again hid the prosthesis from view. “Give me a hand up?” she requested, holding her hand out. Some people couldn’t deal with amputees like her. Their revulsion used to cut her to the quick when she’d been a kid, but she could shrug it off easily now.

Nazab glanced at her over his shoulder and held his hand out. The look in his deep brown eyes was anything but repulsed. “How did you lose your leg, female?” he asked. “Why didn’t you heal from your injury?”

“You can’t heal what you no longer have,” Monica said, letting go of his huge hand once he’d hauled her to her feet. Giving him so much of her energy had worn her out. “It’s late and I need to crash,” she said, covering a yawn with her hand. She could tell him her life story in the morning.

“I require rest as well,” Nazab said. His short brown hair and beard were damp and his skin was glistening with water droplets. Most had dried from his long sprint.

“I have no idea where we are,” she realized, looking around to see they were no longer in the suburbs. They appeared to be in a semi-rural area now. “How far did you run?” she asked in shock.

Nazab shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve never run that fast before.”

“At least the evil aliens won’t be able to find us in a hurry,” she figured. Turning from the road, she spied a distant house. “Can I trust you, Nazab?” she asked, looking him squarely in the eyes.

“You can trust me with your life, female,” he said solemnly. “I have a feeling our destinies are linked. You saved us both by loaning me your energy.”

Monica had a lot of questions, but they were both far too tired to talk in depth. She would recover by morning and hopefully so would he. She just hoped she wasn’t making a mistake by trusting yet another stranger. His soul was white instead of gray, which was extremely rare for an adult. She couldn’t remember ever meeting a grownup with a pure soul before.

“Come on,” she said and began walking towards the house. “I hope we can find some clothes in your size in this place,” she said with a tired smirk.

“I doubt it,” Nazab said ruefully. “Humans don’t tend to grow to six foot six very often.”

“I dated a guy who was almost your size before the Rapture,” she said and he instantly scowled. “But he wasn’t as handsome as you,” she added just to see what his reaction would be. He smiled smugly and angled his body away in a pathetic attempt to pretend she hadn’t just made him even harder.

The house was empty when Monica scanned it from the road. “I’ll scope it out first,” Nazab said, holding up his hand to stop her when she went to step onto the driveway.

“If you feel you have to,” she said, then yawned again. She was so tired she was having trouble keeping her eyes open.

Nazab loped over to the house and checked the front door. It was locked, but the garage was empty. She figured the former owners had driven to their local church on the night of the Rapture. A lot of religious people had been given a magical signal, or their preachers had called them to their places of worship. “At least we won’t have to sleep in beds people died in or vanished from,” she murmured.

The front door opened a couple of minutes later and Nazab waved at her. He’d wrapped a blanket around his waist, which was a shame. She’d happily gaze at his perfect body all night long.

Snickering at her thoughts, Monica trudged to the house, too exhausted to run the short distance.

Chapter Four

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THAMUZ SENSED HIS OFFSPRING when they closed in on the area where the latest gold comet had fallen. It had been weeks since the last Knight of Order had been released from the Void. He’d landed too far away from Manhattan for the soldiers to see the comet. They’d only heard about their foe’s arrival when the Mad Prophet had mentioned him. Someone was always monitoring their ham radio and jotting down everything the human oracle said.

Watching Nazab make off with his progeny after their brief conversation, Thamuz and his colleagues futilely went in pursuit. Coming to a stop a few minutes later, Thamuz shook his head. “It’s no use,” he said with a scowl. “I can’t sense her and they could be anywhere by now.”

“I’ve never seen a knight move that fast before,” Phul said as Alpha Team gathered together. They’d all sprinted as fast as they could, but the knight had left them in his dust.

“No one has ever seen a knight move that fast before,” Lachial said. “What the hell sort of talent does your spawn have, Thamuz?”

“How the hell should I know?” his fellow warrior asked with a snarl. “I saw what everyone else saw. She put her hand on Nazab, then he got a boost of power.”

“Maybe Rahab will know about this skill,” Vetis suggested. “If our commander hasn’t heard of it, Xathan will no doubt have a theory.”

They all shared his sour acknowledgement that Xathan was far smarter than the rest of them.

“What now?” Ornias asked. His offspring no longer haunted Manhattan, searching for survivors to heal. Qiana Forgan hadn’t been seen in months. He hadn’t forgotten how close she’d come to killing him when she’d slit his throat. He would make her pay for that if he ever caught her.

“Someone needs to report to Rahab that we failed to capture Nazab and the cambion,” Lachial said with a sidelong smirk at Phul.

The second in command grimaced that he would be in the firing line yet again. “We don’t know how long the boost of power lasted,” he pointed out. “I think we should at least search the area in the direction they were headed. All knights and soldiers suffer from fatigue when we’re released from the Void and we end up back on Earth. Maybe he burned the magic up after a couple of minutes and exhausted himself.”