Morrigan by Jonathan King (cat reading book txt) 📕

stop in half an hour,” said Abel, shaking his head and smiling.

They’d already stopped at one rest area to clean up. Abel had washed the blood from his skin and hair and tried to get the stains out of his sweater, but with no luck. Morrigan hadn’t even tried, just scrubbed her body clean and strutted out in her red-splattered clothes. It was an improvement, but they’d still frightened the daylights out of the waitress at the old fashioned drive-in diner where they stopped for breakfast. The poor girl almost dropped their food, but Morrigan threw herself over Abel and snatched the tray before it fell.

“Student film,” Morrigan had explained, gesturing to their bloodstained clothes. “Zombie flick. We filmed through the night and haven’t had a chance to change.”

The waitress’s eyes had widened with mild terror, but she’d nodded, wheeled around on her roller skates, and zipped back inside.

“You don’t think she’ll call the police?” Abel had asked. “I’m still a minor, and this is a stolen car. If someone reports us…”

Morrigan had shaken her head. “The police are the least of our worries. But you let me know the second you hear a siren, and we’ll hit the road. I know how to lose people I don’t want to follow me.”

Now she sucked her milkshake through a straw. “Mmm. Actually, in terms of greatest food of all time, pumpkin spice is giving bacon cheeseburgers a run for their money.”

“We keep eating like this, we won’t be in any shape to run from the law.” Abel popped a tater tot into his mouth.

“I’ve been in this shape for millennia,” said Morrigan. “It’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Immortal and unchanging, huh?”

“Oh, I change plenty. But only when I choose to.” She grinned. “For example…”

The world bent sideways for a nanosecond. When it snapped back into place, Morrigan was gone and a hooded crow with a white body and black head and wings sat on the seat, beak tearing at the beef patty.

There was a yelp, and a waitress skating by dropped her tray and plopped down hard on the pavement.

“You might wanna be more careful where you change,” Abel muttered.

Space twisted again, and Morrigan was back to human and calling “Sorry!” to the waitress, who scrambled to her feet and rolled away.

“See, this is why people worshipped us,” said Morrigan. “They can’t explain what we do, so they think we must be Divine with a capital D.”

“So how do you do what you do?” Abel asked.

“Hell if I know,” Morrigan said with a shrug. She noticed Abel wince and said. “Sorry. Guess I still have to watch my language around you.”

“No, it’s okay,” said Abel. “If I’m gonna get out of my Christian bubble, I’ve got to get used to stuff like that.”

Morrigan winked at him. “Goddamn right.”

Abel fought to hide his frown. This could be harder than I thought. Aloud, he asked, “Okay then, what else can you do? There’s the shapeshifting, and the fear, and the skill with a sword. Anything else?”

Morrigan settled back in her seat. “Well, like you said earlier, I’m pretty much immortal; gods only die in battle or by foul play. Some bad plagues a while back wiped a few of us out, too. Other than that, though, we’ll live forever, as far as we know. I can pass into the realm of the dead; it’s my job to help the fallen on to their final destination and provide them what protection and comfort I can in those last moments.” Her eyes darkened. “I haven’t been able to do that in centuries.”

“So you know what comes next?” Abel asked.

Morrigan shook her head. “I’ve never passed into the afterlife. Never even seen it. I just know how to get there and who goes where. Kind of an instinct. Better that way, anyway. I’ve never been curious about where I’ll end up.” She frowned. “And sometimes I get visions, dreams of death. I can tell you when someone’s going to die.” Her eyes darted to the rearview mirror and stayed there, transfixed. “The biker across the parking lot is going to break his neck not long from now.”

Abel chanced a look over his shoulder. The guy was black-leather clad from the neck down, grizzled white hair from the neck up, with an eyepatch over one eye. He leaned back on his bike, throwing glances their way as he munched on a corndog.

“Accident?” Abel asked.

“Don’t think so,” said Morrigan, “but it’s always fuzzy on the details. All I know is I dreamed last night that the guy died.”

So that was why you moaned in your sleep last night. Abel remembered grabbing a couple hours sleep in the rest area parking lot and waking in the middle of the night to Morrigan tossing, her eyes squeezed shut as if she wanted to shut out even what she saw with them closed.

He looked back at the eyepatch guy. The look on his face made Abel’s skin want to crawl away and hide, like this man wouldn’t think twice about slitting somebody’s throat. Still, Abel couldn’t just stand by and let the guy’s neck snap in two.

“We have to warn him,” he said, but before he could open the car door, Morrigan laid a hand on his arm.

“It doesn’t work like that,” she said. “I’ve tried stopping my visions in the past, but they always come true. I dream someone, they die. Every time.” She watched Eyepatch in the mirror. “And he’s been watching us since we got here.”

“Yeah,” said Abel. “Probably because we have blood all over our clothes. We’ve got to change soon.”

“It’s not that,” said Morrigan. “He’s not afraid or territorial. That’s the look of a hunter.”

“You think he’s going to try to rob us or something?”

“I think he’s working for Cora.” Morrigan grabbed her sword and started to unsheathe it. “Wait here.”

It was Abel’s turn to grab Morrigan’s arm. “You’re not going to kill him.”

Morrigan shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know that I’m not the one who breaks