Angels of Vengeance Read online

  Angels of Vengeance

  Furies Book 1

  ________________________

  By

  David Thompson

  © 2018 David Thompson

  Furies Screenplay © 2015 David Thompson/Thompson Coons Productions

  Cover Credit © Sundraw | Dreamstime.com

  Digital retouching by Eric Mast

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Angels of Vengeance

  ABOUT THIS BOOK:

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Bonus Material

  Battle for Tartarus

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THIS BOOK:

  This novel is derived from my screenplay: The Furies.

  The world of the Furies cannot be compressed into a single novel, so I am releasing the story in two parts. Part 1 is still a full-length novel.

  Part 2 will be entitled “The Battle for Tartarus” and will be out in September, 2018

  To Freida;

  And Candice;

  And all my poor, abused beta readers.

  “The trouble with being a god is that you’ve got no one to pray to.”

  ― Terry Pratchett - Small Gods

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cuyamaca Mountains, dawn

  A tall woman in black leather stepped from the sweat lodge. She stretched, and glanced back over her shoulder at the elder tribeswoman who followed her out into the light from the rising sun. She was the tribal shaman, or medicine woman.

  The Tipai-Ipai tribe had just about abandoned the reservation just outside of San Diego, near Cuyamaca Peak north and east of the city. Only 15 tribespeople were left to call the small piece of Mojave Desert home. Placed there by the United States army in 1875, the land supported no crops and gave up precious little water.

  Tisiphone breathed in the sweet desert air. The older woman joined her and the pair just stood, watching the sun rise through the Pondarosa pines.

  "It's a good day to die," Delfina observed.

  "For someone," Tisiphone snorted.

  "As long as it's not me," Delfina grinned, the web of lines in her face outlining her toothless smile. Her face was a deep bronze, her eyes sunken into their sockets with age. Yet, she looked serene, having seen a long life, many children, and grandchildren. Most of whom still remembered their "gramma" on important days.

  "I'm not happy about your message, and I know my mother won't be happy when she learns of it." Tisiphone turned her pale green eyes to the old woman. "All I wanted to do was visit and give your gods my respect. Not pass along some cryptic message."

  "Tough." she shrugged. "I'm just the messenger. I get the vision, I pass it along to whoever it's intended. Not up to me how they feel about it." She stuck a small earthenware pipe between her thin lips and sucked pungent smoke into her lungs. She exhaled and smiled, her eyes taking on a bright glow. "No specifics, just vague warnings. Such as the spirits."

  "Your oracles are as bad as ours," Tisiphone grumbled. "However, you might be garbling the message smoking that junk."

  "Bah! You know damned well the message isn't garbled," she said, exhaling more smoke. "You heard the message yourself. 'A great battle awaits.' What the fuck do I know? Do with it what you want." Delfina sucked on the pipe. It was out. She peered into the pipe and sighed, knocking the ashes out on her hiking boot.

  "If there's nothing else, I have to get going. I have a target awaiting," Tisiphone said as she strode to her black motorcycle parked near the dirt road leading down to the valley.

  Delfina was busy poking more dried weeds into her pipe and smiling. She just watched Tisiphone mount the bike, and heard it quietly start up.

  "Tell your mother I said 'Hola"," the old woman reminded Tisiphone. She watched as the woman in black guided her bike down the dirt road, and marveled at the lack of dust kicked up by the tires. "That's one sweet bike."

  ***

  Death Valley

  The two motorcycles rocketed through the desert. A custom red chopper was in the lead, but just barely. A sinister looking matte black motorcycle hung only a few yards behind.

  Harley Fallows focused on the vibrating mirror attached to the handle bars of his chopper. That damned woman was still on his ass like she was hooked to it with a tow-chain.

  "Goddamn it!" Harley muttered as he twisted the throttle and his chopper surged ahead, the needle on his speedometer going well past 100 as he rocketed along the narrow two-lane blacktop.

  Her words echoed in his head: "If you make it to Stovepipe, you can keep the money from your brother's shop and your life. Otherwise, your life is forfeit."

  Twenty minutes earlier

  "Another?" That was Pops, the bartender.

  "Oh, hell yes." Harley replied and slapped the bar.

  Pops was always asking stupid questions. No one knew his real name, except maybe for the liquor board and the IRS. Pops was a frail man, maybe late 60's, hunched and always dressed in an open tropical shirt and white undershirt. The front of the undershirt had a permanent brown stain from leaning against the bar. At least, that's what people hoped. A lean face, creases around the mouth, eyes, and a furrowed brow, all the way to a bald pate covered somewhat in an untamed shock of thin white hair.

  Pops was the manager, and, perhaps, the owner, of a small dive along a dry section of Highway 190, running through Death Valley. A faded sign proclaimed the establishment to be the "Broken Fender", obviously catering to the local bike gangs.

  The Broken Fender had been his watering hole for several years, but he was a daily fixture after his good-for-nothing brother had bit it, and bit it hard, out on State Highway 190, close to the California/Nevada state line.

  "It was the only goddamned tree in all of Death Valley," he'd remember, then he'd offer a small toast. He celebrated the sale of his brother's motorcycle shop every day in the last month. If not for that tree, Harley would be still in the shop, repairing motorcycle engines and being yelled at by his brother, Jason.

  Jason was the go-getter and college educated one in the family. After their father had passed, Jason took the twenty-five thousand dollars in life insurance money and "wasted all of it" by building the Fallow's Custom Chop Shop, which was worth well over two hundred and fifty thousand a year in business. Instead of spending it all on whiskey, tequila, and women. Like a real man.

  That was Harley prime goal in life: As much tequila, whiskey, and low-end women as he could handle. The first two were easy to come by, the third wasn't happening as often as he'd like.

  Harley was one of those biker types who's shaped a lot like a pro football player gone to seed. His belly was about to burst through the tigh
t black t-shirt and he seemed to never take off the leather vest. The jeans were, at the very least, a size 48 in the waist, and the inseam varied on where he left the jeans riding, often well below his hind end. The ensemble was completed with the usual fingerless rider's gloves, soiled red bandana tied to his neck and the stereotypical tri-fold wallet hooked to a belt loop with a chain. You get the idea.

  When Jason had asked him to work in the shop, Harley figured he would be management. Instead, he found himself insulted and assigned to menial labor. Harley would often show up to his job hungover, leave for lunch and return drunk. But he did have one talent that made Jason keep him on: Harley was a master at engine modifications, increasing horsepower, optimizing balance, and tripling the stopping power of the braking systems found on custom motorcycles. If you ran fast, you'd better be able to stop just as fast.

  Yes, it was a great month for old Harley. Only three months ago, Jason had wrapped himself around a lone Black Walnut tree while riding in the desert. He was testing out a modified engine mounted on his personal motorcycle. He was on the two-lane blacktop highway, running hot and fast through the desert, heading westbound, a sharp turn came up fast. He hit the brakes and there was nothing. He impacted the lone large tree for miles.

  Harley had to pretend to be in shock when the highway patrol showed up to the shop with the bad news. It was his shop now, and he was the boss. Then, fortune really smiled when a gentleman from a large motorcycle modification corporation out of Phoenix offered a generous cash offer for the shop. Seven figures! A shit-load of zeros! The flowers were still fresh on Jason's grave when Harley sold the shop and walked away a rich man.

  He now enjoyed more money than he could ever count, so he made sure the liquor flowed generously in the bar, and there was no shortage of friends.

  Pops reached for a bottle, but Harley put his hand up. "Nope, Pops. The good stuff. The Don Julio Real," Harley said the name as any Anglo, pronouncing each vowel incorrectly, so he pointed to make sure Pops knew what he meant.

  Pops shrugged and grabbed a bottle from the mirrored shelf and poured the glass.

  "20 bucks." Pops watched as Harley slapped a C-note on the bar.

  "Keep 'em coming." He moved his heavy frame around and surveyed the room. A few "known associates" were playing 8-ball. He gave a small salute and downed the expensive liquid.

  "Hey man, you buying?" This was a cat known as Jelly. A very skinny biker. So skinny he could run through a downpour and not get wet. Sagging torn jeans and a bare, skinny rib cage covered in just a black leather vest, skin so white, it was almost ghostly. His stringy arms covered in prison "White Power" tattoos.

  "Sure, whatever." Harley waved at Pops.

  "What are we celebrating?"

  Harley eyed him with one off-blue eye. The other tended to wander around, loose in the eye-socket. "Jesus, Jelly. Your brain is a rusty barrel; you can't hold shit! Lard ass left me his bike shop."

  "Oh yeah. Yeah. That funeral a few months ago," Jelly smiled as he slugged back the tequila. He squinted as it hit bottom. "Damn, smooth."

  "It'd better be. As smooth as a virgins cootch."

  That's when Tisiphone walked in.

  Harley spotted her immediately. A very tall woman, almost as tall as Harley. Her figure barely concealed in a black leather jacket and pants. Her oval shaped face was framed by long, black hair with blood-red highlights. But it was the eyes that caught Harley's attention.

  The brightest green eyes Harley had ever seen. They seemed to shine.

  A flash of a smile and Tisiphone was at the bar.

  "I'll have what he's having." She slid onto the bar stool that was beside Harley, winked and said "Hiya, sweetie."

  "It's on me, Pops." Harley watched as the vision lifted the shot glass and sipped. She nodded appreciation and downed the tequila.

  "Why haven't I seen you in here before?" His eyes lovingly caressed her figure. The little lady was built under all that leather. The muscles in her legs rippled as she moved.

  That rump was ripe for thumping.

  He was in a trance as Tisiphone walked to an empty pool table. She stopped, cocked her head over a shoulder and raised her eyebrows. In an instant, he was by the pool table.

  "Eight ball?" Harley had started racking up the balls.

  "I'd rather race. I hear you have the hottest bike."

  "Yes. Just finished boring out the cylinders, amped up the horsepower, installed an oil cooler. Wrung it out last night. It's one sweet ride. And fast," he bragged.

  "How fast?" Tisiphone asked, her eyes locked onto him.

  "Probably the fastest bike this side of the Funeral Mountains," Harley bragged.

  "Appropriately named, don't you think?" Tisiphone smiled.

  That's when Tisiphone decided to take total control. She looked into Harley's eyes and he saw Death.

  His brother's death.

  He saw himself loosening a brake line on his brother's motorcycle.

  He saw how the nut worked itself loose after an hour's hard riding. On purpose.

  Then the tree...

  That goddamned tree. A solitary, very large, tree along the highway. Right at a tight curve.

  Coming up fast, no effect from the brakes. A blur of dirt, tree and then blackness.

  Tisiphone stuck the shot glass on the cue ball. It stayed on top, not moving. Harley looked around. The bar was silent, dark, everyone a blur.

  "I love a good chase." Tisiphone said, softly. Her eyes gleamed. "I'll even give you a head start."

  Harley put his pool stick down and just stared at the woman.

  "If you make it to Stovepipe before I do, I'll let you live to enjoy the money you got from the sale of your brother's shop. Otherwise," she added, "your life is forfeit."

  The smile was back. A bone-chilling smile. A graveyard smile.

  Harley was outside and had his ride fired up before she was able to finish. Gravel sprayed as he tore out onto the small highway and out into the late afternoon, leaving black marks from the spinning back tire.

  All he heard was her laughter echoing in his head.

  Now he was blasting along the hot blacktop highway, heading west, the desert still very hot from the day's sun.

  In his mirror, the mystery woman in black was keeping pace, nothing he did shook her off his tail. He could swear her whole damned head was glowing red. She was the devil come to take him. Damn, her ride was custom; almost alive.

  No goddamned way she's taking me. He twisted the throttle to the stop. The motor responded with a surge of energy. The exhaust howled. The speedometer needle now pegged and vibrating against the stop. Harley grinned in the wind as the image of the woman shrank in the mirror. Yeah, nothing can catch this bike. Not even the Devil's own motorcycle.

  Then he looked up.

  That goddamned tree.

  The only goddamned tree along this stretch of the highway.

  He twisted sideways. Just a hope of avoiding that tree. The tires of his bike hit the rough rock at the edge of the road, sliding over the drop between macadam and desert.

  Then he was flying. His bike performed a demented dance of destruction as it careened across sand and rock, taking out a tumbleweed. Dust filled the air, then drifted gently away.

  Harley handed hard. His left leg hit a rock outcrop, he felt it break as his momentum carried him through the desert, into a yucca plant. The crack was distinctive. He face planted into a patch of gravel and dirt, his lips splitting on a small rock, dirt clogged his eyes.

  He groaned and gently opened his eyes. He had missed the tree, but he'd fucked up his leg for sure. He lifted himself up on his arms and looked.

  A bloody bone stuck up out of a rip in his jeans. He grimaced. Blood flowed down his chin, covering his dirty t-shirt.

  Maybe that damned woman would phone for help.

  He watched as she glided up, stopped, and just sat, observing him. She didn't look like the type to call anyone.

  He gave her the one-fingered salut
e and tried to rise further. The pain broke through all the tequila. He yowled in agony.

  He opened his eyes. He let the spots clear away. He looked back towards the road. Where was she? Her demonic motorcycle sat on the macadam, alone and menacing, but she wasn't there.

  He turned to crawl out of there. Get to the road. There had to be a car along sometime. Hell, he'd even kiss any cop stopping. On the lips.

  He crawled a few more feet when his hand slapped a black boot belonging to the woman.

  "You missed the tree. Your brother didn't."

  Tisiphone was looming over him. As he looked up, he saw huge black wings sprouting from her back and unfolding outwards.

  What in all that is holy is this woman?

  Tisiphone crouched down and turned her head sideways, just observing.

  "Your brother broke his neck, but that didn't kill him, did it? No, he died from a snake bite. He'd still be alive, except you loosened the retaining nuts on break line, didn't you?"

  She stood up and walked around him. "Yes, a fatal combination: Increased horsepower and zero braking power. What to do. You are in no shape to make another run at the tree."

  "Hey, lady, I don't know who you are, but I had nothing to do with..." Harley's protests were cut off when Tisiphone grabbed him by the do-rag and twisted his head around.

  "Tell your brother I said 'Hi'."

  His neck hurt like hell as she twisted. There was a distinctive crack.

  Tisiphone stood and looked down at him. She cocked her head and grinned.

  "I happen to be very big on 'Eye for an eye'," she said as she dropped a very angry diamondback rattlesnake on his back.

  The snake began striking. Harley was unable to even scream as he felt the snake strike the back of his head. He tried turning over, his arms flailing. The snake hit again, then again, injecting venom with each bite. Its tail buzzing in anger as it continued to strike his neck and back, again, and again.

  Her eyes flashed a brilliant green. Multiple writhing black snakes were visible on her leather jacket. She watched the biker struggle and scream. She smiled grimily, and strode off, her wings ruffling in the breeze.