“You might produce static electricity, but if you want to stick to something the window should be fine enough!”

Abbigail Ortiz to an overprotective Storm

The three of us started heading back to the house, each of us lost in their own thoughts. With how peaceful the past days had been, this sudden attack had been quite a wakeup call.

The vagrant was following us a few steps behind, for which I was grateful considering the smell. Downwind was good. I wanted to know more about him, but it would have to wait after we introduced him to the wonderful world of bathing.

I was nearing my limits when we reached home, the adrenaline had gone down and the new bruising was starting to make itself known. Uriel looked at me quizzically.

“You got hurt?”

“Only some bruising. It hurts but nothing serious.”

“Come here a second.”

As he laid his hand on my belly, warmth seeped out, easing the pain of my muscles. The unknown man interested gaze followed us as all my aches were healed and I could straighten myself again.

“Let’s go inside, Maggs must be worried sick with Kate coming back hurt, and me taking off without an explanation.”

Mom was waiting for us in the living room with a worried expression that only eased after checking our collective well-being.

“Where’s the imp?”

“I put her to bed, after she cried herself out. She’ll be mostly ok after a good night of sleep I think. Uriel healed her scrapes and bruises already.”

At last she turned to an inquisitive eye to our olfactory challenging guest.

“And who might you be sir?”

The deep voice I remembered from the time I was half conscious sounded even warmer in the confines of room.

“I’m an acquaintance of your daughter Ma’am.”

“He’s the one who brought me to the hospital last time, also he helped us a lot tonight.”

“If you’re a friend of Abby, I can’t let you go out in this state. Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

“I can manage Ma’am”

“Don’t get fresh with me! This is a simple question with a yes or no answer. So, do you have a place to stay, yes or no? Also, a dumpster is not considered a place to sleep.”

“No Ma’am.”

“You’ll be sleeping on the sofa tonight then; I can’t let my daughter’s benefactor sleep in the street.”

Mom in a bad mood was something of a steamroller. Resisting her when she was fussing over something, or in this case someone, was an exercise in futility. This was a point our guest could now attest to while he watched helplessly mom arranging his life.

For once Uriel was smart enough not to crack one of his wise-assed comments, though he did look thoroughly amused.

“For now let’s get him cleaned up, we’ll ask questions later. The smell is killing me!”

“Show him to the bathroom Abby, I’ll try to scrounge up some clothes.”

I tugged gingerly at the man’s sleeve, motioning for him to follow me. I did get a little kick out of watching him so nonplussed by our meddlesome family. Watching grown men squirm is always fun, and fun is a good stress reliever.

I pushed him in the bathroom, grabbing paper and pen on the way. In the confines of the small room I realized how big he truly was. Since he had a harmonious build under the grime, it was easy to miss, although he dwarfed my 1m68 by a good 20 cm.

“Just throw your rags outside after undressing. You won’t use those again ever.”

As he stood dumbly in the middle of the room, a horrifying thought emerged in my head.

“You do know how to use a shower, right?”

“This is a shower? I’m sorry, I mostly used communal baths before. There were not many showers were I came from, and they didn’t look like that.”

Thankfully he caught on quickly, since I was certainly not going to scrub his back. After an explanation on how everything worked, and a reminder to use lots and lots of soap and shampoo I left him to his cleaning, going back downstairs with my parents after a quick side trip to go burn some rags before they stank the whole garden.

“He’s getting cleaned up. Anyone want to bet the sewer smell of the area will be gone by tomorrow morning?”

My father snorted.

“Not going to bet on that. I like my odds to give me at least a small winning chance. Now tell us, what happened exactly tonight?”

My retelling of the events of the evening were only punctuated by the quiet rumbling of the pipes, albeit both my parents’ faces became grimmer by the minute.

“The strange thing is that I think they were only aiming at Kate. I was just the extra, the grain of sand derailing the cogs.”

“We can’t be sure of that. Maybe they only targeted her this time because she’s the easiest prey to catch.”

The sound of the pipes had stopped by the time I was done with my story. Soft footsteps descended the stairs. He was eerily silent for such a big guy.

My jaw might have hit the floor when he entered the living room, and for honesty’s sake I must admit I might have drooled a little. After all, who could have known what was hiding under all that dirt, trash, and whatever?

The matted, stringy hair was now a shiny midnight waterfall tumbling down his broad shoulders to his tapered waist, framing a face resembling those of the Hindi gods one can see on the murals of temples.

The slightly slanted deep blue eyes were even more striking now the contrast of his bronzed skin was revealed. Even the ill-fitting clothes of my late stepfather didn’t manage to turn him into a dork.

“I know these eyes…”

I was grateful for my mother words since I had a teeny tiny bit of trouble gathering my scrambled wits, or whatever I had left of those.

“So now can you tell us your name and how you got acquainted to Abby?”

“It’s a rather long story Ma’am, are you sure you want to hear it now?

“Time is not an issue. Sit down, and stop calling me Ma’am. I’m Margaret, or Maggs.”

“Yes Ma…Maggs. Now, where do I start?”

“How about at the beginning?”

“The beginning uh? How do these go…”

A small self-deprecating smile appeared on the corner of his lips.

“A long time ago in a land far to the east, a Rakshasa demon was living in an ornate palace, sucking the land of all its life so that he could prosper. Not a soul was safe, for he would feed of the blood and soul of any one he fancied.

The rulers of the neighboring lands were getting increasingly anxious as his appetite grew and grew, always more voracious. They united against the demon, not able to strike him and his armies down, but still keeping him inside his own borders.

The Rakshasa, growing angrier and more desperate each year, challenged the Thunderbeast of the highest mountain of his domain, capturing his daughter born of a human woman.”

His voice was becoming smoother as he spoke, the rough edges disapearing, but also colder, as if he was telling the story of someone else, of a disliked stranger.

“Thunderbeasts, even of mixed blood, are powerful being and the daughter’s blood had bred true. By foul means of trickery and illusion, the Rakshasa bred a son on the Thunderbeast daughter, although she herself died in childbirth.

For many years he trained the grandson of the Thunderbeast, turning him in a weapon to destroy his enemies, chaining it to him by rituals of blood and bones.

But as more and more blood stained the hand of the beast, emptiness and weariness crept in its heart while its power grew.

At last the beast couldn’t stand extinguishing the lives of innocent anymore, and in a last bid for freedom challenged its genitor on the southern shores of the Black Sea.

The battle was long and bitter, ending in the sealing of the Rakshasa under the sea. In a last ditch effort, the demon ripped the spirit of the beast off its body, sealing it in a pocket dimension while the mindless body was cursed to never die and roam the land endlessly.”

He stood there waiting for our reaction, obviously bracing for a rebuke, insults or worse. Didn't anyone ever accepted him or treated him kindly?

“You were the white beast with the spikes in his body.”

“I owe you a life debt, and more.”

“Anybody would have done the same. You owe me nothing.”

“I fought my father in 1943. Nobody came to unseal me in the decades I spent in the half-dimension afterwards.”

Over seven decades of suffering. It was a miracle he was functional enough to interact with us, and no wonder he latched onto me after being freed.

“Then go live a happy life.”

“I need to repay my debt.”

There were snickering sounds coming from both my parents, and I could see my father’s shoulders trembling in mirth. My mother decided to intervene before our discussion degenerated further in grade school-dom.

“You didn’t tell us your name.”

“That’s because I don’t have one.”

“That won’t do! We can’t go calling “hey you” or “ex-stinky guy”, you need to choose a name!”

“Call me whatever you like, I don’t really care.”

“Then don’t come whining if it doesn’t please you later on.”

My father decided to add his own two cents:

“Since he’s half cat demon, why don’t we call him Felix or Kit?”

“Does he look like a Felix to you?”

Mom asked:

“So if I got it right he’s half Rakshasa, a quarter human and a quarter Thunderbeast?”

“Yes Ma’a, err…Maggs.”

“Then why not something tied to the Thunderbeast part, to remember his mother?”

As we debated, blue eyes were jumping from face to face, as we happily upset his cold and tidy world.

“Hmmm, there was the lightning colored fur, and the weather when we met…How about Storm?”

“I still think Felix was good enough.”

“Hush you. Do you like Storm?”

“Storm…I like it. From now on I will be Storm.”

“Then Storm, we’ll let you sleep, the sofa is all yours tonight. Tomorrow we’ll decide what to do about the situation as a whole, when we’ll be less tired. Have a good night.”

As we trundled up the stairs, my father stopped me.

“A word with you Abby?”

“Yes?”

“You should accept the Thunderbeast’s help, albeit with caution. I can tell he’s powerful, the beast blood bred true in him, and the Rakshasa blood adds more tricks to the mix, but the human blood makes him unstable.

If he were to unleash his full power there is a possibility of him going berserk, and even I might have a hard time reining him in without destroying the land around us.”

“How could I kick him to the curb with that kind of history, when he already helped me twice?”

He mussed up my hair.

“That’s my daughter. Be nice to him, but stay vigilant.”

“Good night old man.”

“My body might be old, but my soul is young!”

“Yes, that’s what is called becoming senile.”

As silence fell on the house, multicolored halos trailed from the lilac tree, cocooning the house in an energy net invisible to the mortal eye.

Some entered through the windows, keeping guard over the sleeping forms, whereas others swept to the roof in an organized unit.

Even more creatures patrolled the streets in a silent vigil, searching for the foul ones who dared offend the benevolent ones.