Idle Hands Ch. 06

"But Mahazioth grew proud. He thought that I was a sign of Jehovah's favor. That he was superior to other men.

"It's dangerous to brag about that sort of thing. Even now. But especially in a bronze-age court where there were men who would cheerfully stab you in the back if they thought it would gain them some temporary advantage.

"One night the men of David's court were drinking. And Mahazioth fell to boasting about his prowess as a musician and a poet and a lover. And one of his rivals, who had listened to this sort of thing too often, pulled his dagger out of his belt and stabbed him through the eye."

Maria gasped, and Yasna felt ill.

"David had him killed, of course." Althea's face was bleak. "But nothing would bring back my lover. Which is why," she continued, her voice hard, "I warn you all to beware. Not that I fear you will fall prey to a sudden case of stabitis," she said with black humor. "But think how easy it would be for you to let slip the truth about myself. Or about your various relationships." Her gaze lingered on Sarah and Alex. "If the truth became known, you would think a dagger in the eye socket would be a walk in the park compared to what your fellow humans would do to you."

*****

"This is getting to become a habit," Althea said the next morning, as she, Josh, and Yasna gathered once again in Josh's workshop.

"Mm hm," Josh grunted. He bit into the peanut butter and toast sandwich he held in one hand, leaning over to inspect his handiwork carefully. He sighed in relief. "It looks good," he said. He handed the sword to Althea.

She nodded. The black calfskin wrapping the hilt was exactly what she needed to get a good grip when she wielded the sword. "All that's left is the grinding."

"I like grinding," Josh smirked.

"So do I. But unfortunately, that's not the kind I have in mind right now." She dispelled the alluring vision in her head of her and Josh falling to the ground in snuggling, loving heap, and turned her attention to the linishing machine in the corner.

Josh turned it on, and the leather belt began to rapidly spin, wrapped around the two wheels which made up the base of the machine. A high-pitched hum rang through the room. "Step away, Yasna," she warned, speaking loudly to make her voice heard over the noise. "If I lose my grip on the sword, someone could get hurt."

Gingerly, she lowered the edge of the bronze blade to the leather strap. Bright orange sparks flew as the friction ground away the rough edges, leaving a finely-honed edge in its wake.

Her mind flew back to the first time she had done this, guided by her father Imriel. At that time, bronze had been literally cutting-edge technology, and she had sharpened the edge of her first sword on a leg-powered granite grindstone, driven by the muscle and sinew of an angel of the Lord.

"Carefully, my child," Imriel warned her, as her inexperienced hands strayed too close to the revolving stone. "Your mother would have me gelded if I let any harm come to you."

"I don't think so," she replied teasingly. "I think she would geld you herself. Mama isn't the sort of person to let others do her dirty work."

He smiled at her, the expression reassuringly human on his angelic face. His tar-black hair swept away from a high, clear brow, falling in gentle waves past his shoulders. His lips were full and red, and his green eyes, so like her own, were the color of summer leaves at sunset. She could see why her mother Lilith couldn't keep her hands off her mate. He was everything that was desirable in a man.

She shuddered as she bent once more to her task. When her body's change came upon her a few years ago, and she came into her heritage as a woman, she had been wholly unprepared for the urgency of its needs. Even so, she would not have dreamed of trying to seduce her father. He and her mother shared a love so deep, so profound, that it was almost holy. Coming between the two of them would be a sin.

She blinked rapidly, clearing her eyes of pooling tears. They dripped onto the coarse cloth of her wool skirt, and she lifted the sword from the grindstone until she could see clearly again.

"Althea?" Her father's voice was concerned. "Are you well, dearest?"

She looked up, her smile wobbling on her face, though the hands which guided the skittering sword across the grindstone were sure.

"Of course, Papa. It's just...I want to have what you and Mama have together. And from what the Messenger of God said, I don't think I ever will."

"Hmmm." He frowned, though the forbidding expression was not meant for her. It was obvious he had no affection for the Messenger, and in the days after he had decreed what the future held for Althea and the rest of his children, he had been filled with barely-suppressed rage. It was well, Althea had thought with some fear, that God had not chosen to appear himself. If He had, her father might have earned himself a trip to the Pit.

"A life spent protecting humanity from the demon-spawn is a noble calling, dearest," he said at last. "And I am happy that you won't have to worry about old age." His face saddened as he was reminded of his own wife's mortality.

"No. Only about being killed by a demon's offspring." Her voice was bitter. "And apparently I can take lovers by the thousand, but never bear a child of my own. How can I find my true mate when I cannot offer him a continuation of his line?"

"There are many types of love, Althea. A man's love is not dependent on siring children, no matter how your mother and I may have seemed to disprove that, considering how many siblings we have given you." His lips quirked, and Althea giggled. It seemed that Lilith had barely recovered from bearing one half-human, half-angel child when she was expecting again. At the age of nineteen, Althea was now the oldest of eleven brothers and sisters, each more lovely than the last.

"Furthermore, God does not see all ends. Though he has passed his judgment on you, it may well be that the Almighty has other plans.

"So be of good cheer, daughter. And let's take a look at that sword."

Althea blinked, drawing away from the memory. Looking at the sword, she saw that her hands had completed the job of sharpening and polishing it, even though her mind had been over four thousand years in the past.

She held it up before her, and Josh gave a low, impressed whistle. It gleamed in the morning light, rays from the sun glinting off the honed edges. Unlike the green, corroded bronze swords which were still sometimes recovered from ancient archeological digs, this sword was brand new, and glowed a reddish gold.

"Stand back," she said quietly, then moved into a series of exercises, her muscles flowing from one position to the next, her movements blindingly quick. She ended with an attack in high guard, the blade whipping through the air with a keening cry. With a shout she swept it around viciously, cutting into a wooden support timber at the edge of the room. The sword bit a handspan deep, vibrating with a low, resonant hum.

"Good," she said, satisfied, then wrenched it out with an effortless shrug of her shoulders. "Very good." She glanced over at Josh and Yasna, who were looking at her with something approaching awe. "What?"

"You were...so quick," Yasna said. "I could barely see you move."

She shrugged. "One of the benefits of my heritage. It isn't all puppies and rainbows and an awesome body and spectacular sex. You saw what the demon-spawn looked like when you were rescuing my body from the hospital, Yasna. Do you think that I could kill something like that unless I had some pretty incredible physical gifts myself? I'm like them. Half of my heritage is angelic."

"You are not like them," she said fiercely. The dark-haired doctor crossed the room and grasped her upper arms, giving her a firm shake. Her eyes blazed, and Josh smiled to himself. Yasna reminded her of a roe deer angrily confronting a hunting leopard, and expecting to win.

"You're not," she insisted. "You love. You feel. Our pain is your pain. Our joy is your joy. Would a creature like Kincaid stay here with us, protect us, when he could just as easily leave? If you are so like them, why are we still alive when you could have abandoned us and left us to stand or fall on our own?

"It's because of you, Althea. You say you are beautiful. I won't deny that. But the beauty of your body is as nothing compared to the beauty of your soul."

She stuttered to a halt, embarrassed and confused by the passion of her conviction.

"Maybe," Althea sighed. Despite her unlined face, she suddenly looked very old. She laid the sword down on the worktable. "Could you make a sheath and a belt to hang it on, Josh? I don't feel like cutting myself to ribbons tomorrow night before I have a chance to kill Kincaid. It would be dreadfully gauche, after all, to show up covered in blood."

"No problem," he said, confused and a little concerned by her sudden change of mood.

"I'm going outside for a while. Let me know when you have it done so I can try it on. Tomorrow's going to be a big day, I think."

Her shoulders drooping wearily, she left the building. Yasna looked as if she would like to follow her, but Josh stopped her with a frown and a shake of her head.

"What?"

"Let her go. I don't know what's gotten into her, but something triggered an unhappy memory. Let her be for now. She'll talk about it when she's ready."

*****

Althea walked around the back yard, lost in her thoughts.

Gone. So many of them gone. Her father, Imriel. Her mother, Lilith. Many of her own siblings as well, the only ones who could truly understand her. Either slain in their millenia-old battle against the denizens of the Pit, or lost to their own despair as the years rolled unceasingly past.

She stood still, her fists clenched. What was the point anymore? What was...

What was that sound? Low and furtive, it had been intruding into her subconscious for the last several minutes, until small but significant portions of her brain were going crazy.

Frowning, she tracked it across the back yard, slowly walking away from the house. As she crossed the line of sugar maples, she finally discovered the source. Jeremy was crouched in a small plot of freshly-tilled earth, his back to her, wielding a trowel. By his side she could glimpse a bundle of seed packets. As she watched, he tore one open, pouring a tiny scattering of seeds across his palm, then bent to push them, one by one, into the dark, loamy ground.

She must have made a noise, because his head came up, turning to meet her eyes. "Hey there," he smiled. "Coming to help?"

She opened her mouth to give a polite refusal, then paused. She didn't want to go back into the workshed, crowded with reminders of death to come. And she had no desire to go into the house, packed full of people whose safety she was responsible for. Some time spent in the quiet of nature might be just the thing to sooth her jangling nerves.

So she smiled instead, and asked, "What are you planting?"

He grimaced. "Whatever was left, basically. Pickings were slim at the store. Most everyone has already put in their gardens, if they're going to, so most stores aren't carrying any seed stock. But I did get a few things. Lettuce, spinach, radishes, and carrots."

Althea sifted through the packages. "Oh. Flowers?"

Jeremy shrugged. "Bought them on a whim, really. But I thought they'd make a nice border around the garden. And if we decide to put in beehives in the future, the bees would sure appreciate it."

"Beehives?" Her forehead furrowed in puzzlement.

"My father keeps a few hives. Nothing better than fresh honey to put on your oatmeal on a cold winter's morning."

"You," she said, "are a very odd person." Nevertheless, she took up the package. Reading the back, she saw it was made up of a mix of poppies, coneflowers, asters, alyssum, and forget-me-nots. As Jeremy worked with the vegetables, she slowly made her way around the boundary of the recently dug garden, Every few inches, she sowed another seed. Her conversation with Josh and Yasna the day before came back to her mind.

I wonder. Did the Almighty feel the same way I do, when She created the universe? When the stars were born and the planets cooled and life, primitive and clumsy, first emerged?

The warm morning sun felt like a benediction on her back. As she worked, a knot of tension she had not even been aware of loosened in her shoulders. She took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled, letting go of days of ratcheting fear and stress. The quiet was like balm on the raw places in her soul. She shuffled forward on her knees, damp earth making dark stains on the pair of heavy, tough jeans she had worn outside today. A few paces away, Jeremy hummed softly, his broad back bent in solemn contemplation.

An hour passed quietly, and she went back to the pile of seeds several times. By the time she had finished her circuit around the garden, she was pleasantly tired, and she had gained a measure of calm which she had not felt for several days. To be truthfully honest with herself, she felt more at ease than she had at any point in the last three weeks. Ever since she had been torn out of her body, she and Rachel had lurched from one crisis to the next, with only the smallest chance to recover before the next urgent matter had reared its ugly head.

"Feeling better?" Jeremy asked from a few yards away. His hands were dirty, but behind him low rows stretched behind him with almost military precision. Small plastic tabs, denoting the plants which were planted there, rose from the earth like a line of alert sentries.

"Yes," she said. "Though I have no idea how you knew I was upset."

He shrugged. "Didn't take a genius to see it. You were wound up so tight it looked you were going to snap if someone said the wrong thing. I've seen it a lot at school. There's a certain look people get when they're one step away from completely losing their shit. Everyone in law school hits the wall at some point. Where we're one homework assignment or bad night's sleep from going off the rails. You had that same thousand-yard stare.

"The best thing to do is to get your mind off what is causing you stress. For some it's a night out at the bars, or singing karaoke. Others dive into a book, or video games, or just go on a run."

"What do you do?"

"Well," he said, brushing dirt off his hands, "being a naturally calm and serene sort of fellow, I never feel the need for that sort of self-indulgent behavior. But if I did, it would have taken the form of drinking beer, playing terrible music videos, and singing off-tune at the top of my lungs."

Despite herself, she laughed. "What kind of music videos?"

"I'm not telling."

"Come on! Now you have to tell me!"

He kept his lips obstinately shut, and she pounced on him, wrestling him to the ground. She crouched above him as he sprawled on his back, a victim of her superior strength and speed. "Tell me! Or I'll...I''ll..." She tried to find a punishment to suit his awful crime. "I'll tickle you!"

"You wouldn't dare."

"Ha!" She suited actions to words, drawing her fingers teasingly up his rib cage, tormenting him. She bit her lip as he twitched helplessly under her onslaught. He tried to fend her off with his hands, but she caught his wrists in one hand and pinned them over his head with contemptuous ease. The movement brought their heads closer together, and she found herself gazing at his lips, which looked temptingly kissable.

"All right! I give up! I watch...

"I watch cheesy hair metal videos."

She gasped and sat back on her heels. "No," she said, letting her voice take on horrified tones. "That can't be true. That's impossible. I would never associate with someone who had such terrible musical taste."

He shook his head sorrowfully. "It's true. Ratt, Poison, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Cinderella. All the greats. Even..." his voice lowered, as if he was going to confess some sick perversion which would destroy her faith in him. "Even Meat Loaf."

Althea made gagging noises, though the effect was somewhat ruined by her bouts of giggling. "Meat Loaf? Seriously?"

"Oh, come on. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is a classic."

"Classic what?"

Jeremy floundered for a moment. "I don't know. Just...classic, you know?"

"No, I don't. Not really." She gazed down at his face, and her heart melted. Stress and anxiety had been replaced by love and desire. She cupped his hand in her cheek. "Did you know," she said, her voice going low and husky, "that you were the first person I had Rachel seduce after I took up residence in her mind?"

"Well, I had kind of figured that out," he said. "But I wasn't sure whether I should mention it. Some people might consider it rude."

"Hmm." She bent lower, until the tips of her breasts, hanging free inside her thin blouse, just touched his chest. She made a low, murmuring sound inside her throat. "Of course, it wasn't as if I was in control at the time. All I could do was hint, and suggest, and try to persuade. But the experience, even filtered through her body, was very rewarding.

"Are you ready for me, dear boy?"

His eyes, staring back up at her, were wide and dilated, and she could feel his cock surge erect within the confines of the loose pair of shorts he was wearing. She let her weight settle down until her groin was rubbing his erect phallus. "I don't think any man will ever truly be ready for you, Althea. But if you want me, I'm here."

"Thank you," she whispered. With a quick movement, she rolled over, so that she was on the bottom, her back pressed down against the fertile soil of the garden. With one hand she pulled the hem of her blouse up over her chest, exposing her breasts. With the other, she unsnapped the button of her jeans, and she fought to lower the waistband down below her knees, driven by the inevitable tidal surge of lust.

Jeremy hovered above her, braced on his elbows. His hands, grimy with the earth, reached out to cup her breasts, then retreated.

"Are you kidding me?" she huffed. "I lived in a world without antibiotics for thousands of years, Jeremy. Do you think a little dirt is going to bother me?"

"It just seems wrong," he replied. In response to her not-so-subtle hints, he cupped her breasts, then bent to lick her engorged nipples. "You're so beautiful. To get you dirty...it's not right."

"Well, I appreciate the sentiment," she replied, arching her back into his hot, loving mouth. "But I sometimes went weeks between baths back in the old days." She wrinkled her nose. "Hell, the way I smelled would knock over an ox at fifty yards. So don't think I'm like some girl you'd meet on a Friday night up by the Viagra Triangle, scared to death she might chip a nail. Yes, that's it," she urged, as he suckled her nipple, then moved higher, to her mouth. She moaned as they kissed, and she increased her efforts to lower her jeans. Finally, in response to her urgent shoves, they cleared her hips and went past her thighs and knees, only to be bound up around her shins.

"Do you want me to help?" he asked, one eyebrow rising.

"No." Instead, she raised both legs, then slipped them, jeans and all, around his head. With an ungentle shove, they cleared his shoulders, her ankles resting on his back. Jeremy suddenly found his head at a level with the moist folds of her pussy. "Well now," she teased. "Do you think you can find something to do while you're down there?"