Chapter Eight

The Ninja

“Who knew getting hit by a car would change my life instead of taking it? I for sure did not know it would lead me to meeting my maker… quite literally. And my ticket to cleaning the red from my ledger of life…”

“How the ever loving fuck did you know that?” Martin demanded of the woman. He had come to the west coast to avoid the people who knew him; he had gotten out of the life of crime he had led and he would not go back.

 Abby, however, was stuck in viewing his past. George helped the man up. “Look, let us explain. It is a bit out there, but all true.” He pulled the man to his feet.

 “You got like five seconds to explain how she knew who I was!” Martin yelled.

 Dean shrugged and smirked. “She is God.”

 Martin blinked at him and stared. “You’re shitting me.”

 Dean gave a shit-eating grin. “Yeah, she created this Earth with her brothers as a gift to her daddy.”

 “She is an angel?” Martin asked. This just floored him. He was sure there was not a God. And there she fucking stood before him.

 “One of the first. She is the only one left upon this Earth and within this realm.” Joseph stated as he walked over to Abby. “Hey, Angel, you gotta snap out of this. We have things to do. Things to save. An Earth full of us mere mortals to save.” He placed a hand on her shoulder.

 Abby blinked as she came back. This had never been her intent. It had never even been her dark brothers’ intents. True evil was born of man. Yes, they made the catalyst by introducing both good and evil, light and dark, but man had taken the routes of darkness and evil and bulldozed their own world and definition. “Sorry,” Abby whispered as she rushed to the edge of the parking lot and threw up. “So sorry.” Abby whispered, as the pain, guilt, and sorrow. Sometimes she really hated her three dark brothers and their creations in this realm. She kept whispering sorry as she passed out; her mind not being able to take what they had done to her Protector’s mind and soul. She let darkness take her as she was overloaded with emotions and pain.

 The group looked at each other, and Joseph picked her up. “Dean, George, go check in. Get a few rooms. Hurry!”

 Dean and George nodded and took the credit card she had put on the dash and went to book a few suites. They were back and got her in the room before too much time had passed and someone decided to call the cops.

 Sakura checked over Martin and decided he was healthy. August looked at them all. “What do you two do?”

 Sakura looked at the kid. “I am a doctor. You?”

P “Linguist.”

 Martin shrugged. “I just sold my multimillion dollar private security company. I am not employed right now.”

 “Coo, coo, coo. That is cool. You think you can teach me how to protect myself? I mean, I can run, but I always was too caught up in my mind and languages to do any type of sports or anything.”

 “Sure kid.” Martin shrugged. It would not hurt to teach the kid a few things.

 Dean, Joseph, and George cleared their throats. “So, maybe it is time we tell you what is going on…” George cleared his throat and looked to Dean. He had been the voice so far, and blunt seemed to work with this ragtag team Abby was putting together.

 Abby was watching Martin’s life again. She shook her head. How had this happened? How could such evil be allowed by her mortals? If there were times she doubted keeping the realm alive, it was what she was watching now.

 Martin was four years old when his father started whipping him. He was four when his mother put in into martial arts classes. Martin trained day after day, pushing his little body. His only goal was to be able to fight back for his mother and himself against his father. Ten years. Ten years he made it a point to learn every form of martial arts up to a point and make them his own, and he accidentally killed his father one night when he fought back from the beating. The local cartel found out, as his father worked for them, and made Martin a deal. Work for them, and they would make it all disappear and his mother would be taken care of for as long as she lived. He took the deal.

 For the next ten years, he was the muscle of the cartel boss. He was involved in many inner workings and even had his own group. His own front business. He hated it. He continued to become a martial arts expert. It allowed his mind to shut down. It allowed him to not only stay alive, but to escape the realities of his world. Of the world he was born and bred into and the world he was determined to leave forever. He learned the trades, made the contacts and finally he made enough money that he paid his way out of his contract. He paid his way out of the cartel and swore never to breathe a word of their operations. And he would not. His mother may have passed away that last year, but he was now getting a reason to live. Once he was free, he took the rest of his money and used some of those same contacts to set up a legitimate business. He went into private security and three years later; he made a huge name for his company and sold it. He was out of that business. He would not go back. As the cartel expected favors. And if he did not have a business, there was no reason for them to ever seek him out again. He had gone to San Francisco for a vacation while he plotted his next move. Then he got hit by a damn SUV. 

 Abby gasped awake. She took deep, heaving breaths. She closed her eyes again. She had to get her magic under control. She had been absorbing as much as possible as from the ley lines and trying to process it and so it was not as easy as normal to process her magic. She closed her eyes to the spots before her eyes. The souls of her mortals. It would be too easy to snuff them all out when her soul was in so much pain. Never should a child be hurt. Yes, they get sick. Yes, there is pure evil. But it still hurt her. And it was why a child would always gain heaven if the innocent was killed as a child, either by the darkness of the world or by illness. She took deep, calming breaths as she felt her magic yearn to break free and destroy those who hurt hers. It would be so easy to just let her magic go, to snuff out all those who caused pain to her mortals, to snuff out the Earth and maybe start again. Her magic built with her hatred.

 “Angel?” 

A voice broke her out of her black fog of hatred. She opened her eyes. “Oh, how long was I out?” She blinked back the spots of her mortals.

“Not very long. We got a hotel room, explained what we know to those two, and both are ready to team up with us. And we were waiting for you to tell us the next step.” Joseph handed her a glass of water.

Abby sipped it as she gathered her thoughts. “We are to get a ring back. It isn’t the fact it is a ring. It is the stone within the ring, which makes it so important. At first, it was the ring that I had once used to locate my keepers until my own abilities grew. After all, even an all powerful being like me evolves and grows, and I had a new method. It will give a general location of people with good souls that would be good for my Keepers. See, one of my older brothers knew I would need help and gave me this way to find them. It was his goodbye gift to me. I have never seen him again.”

“What is the stone?” Sakura’s heart broke at the pain in the woman’s voice, God or not, she still grieved for the woman.

“It was a gift from Lucifer. His last gift to me.”

“Why would the devil give you a gift?” August tilted his head in confusion.

Sakura frowned. “You were close to Lucifer?”

Abby sighed and laid her head against the headboard. “He was my brother, my big brother and he spoiled me so, and I worshiped him and his twin Micheal.” She took a deep breath. “That is a story for another time. But he was my closest brother. He was my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, he was darkness personified. But he was made that way. Everything in existence is about balance. You cannot have light without dark. Good without Evil. Mortal life without death. We are just cosmic energy and can be destroyed. Even the immortal souls of mortals can be destroyed.” She shook her head at the memories of creating mortal life and death with Micheal and Lucifer. “I will explain more once we have gathered everybody. But when he left, he removed the iris of his eyes and created for me a blue diamond. The first blue diamond. I then made them a rarity on Earth. But you see, the reason he had made it from his irises was to help me find those souls that would be my mortal family. To be there with me, because he chose not to. To find the ones that would help me protect this world. This world I exist for, to exist, for losing this realm, would break what little is left of my sanity as balance between my eight brothers. That break will tip the cosmos into an imbalance of light or dark. But back to the stone; it also holds some of his power. Some of his life force. And if Leslie knew this…” She shivered at the thought. “She could open the very gates of hell and let it overrun the world. Yes, there are demons and ways to leave hell, but there is a balance as long as the main gates remained sealed. We sealed them using that diamond as a key. Just like I used an item Micheal gave me when he said goodbye to lock the main gates of heaven when I took over the thrones in both.”

“Jesus sealed the gates of hell!” August blinked in shock, remembering his religious teachings. Ignoring the fact that this woman literally ran Heaven, Hell, and Earth.

 Abby nodded. “He did. And that is a story for another time.” Abby used a tone that broke no arguments. “Right now we have to get this diamond back before she literally releases Hell upon Earth.”

 Dean nodded. “Okay, so where is this stone?”

 Abby sighed. “I have to tap into the McKinnon line, so I need a few moments. Then we will have to look up the building plans and go from there.” 

 George agreed. “Good idea, I, Sakura and Dean, will go get some food. Martin will secure our rooms so nobody can find out what we are plotting. Don’t look so shocked Martin, the Navy hired your company a few times asking for you. When you sold, we debated pulling the contracts but kept them in the end.” 

Martin nodded. That made sense.

 “And Auggie…” Joseph started.

 “Hey! August! My name is August! Just because ‘cuz I am nineteen and the youngest doesn’t mean you can call me Auggie!”

 Joseph rolled his eyes. “What are Auggie,” August let out a huge sigh, as he tried to hide a smile; he never had a good nickname, and these were finally his peers. “And I going to do?”

 “Joseph is going to get us another car and Auggie is going to get map drawing material and notebooks and things like that we will need.” George finished with a firm nod. 

 “Who made you the boss, Squid?” Dean crossed his arms, he was not saying it was not a good plan, but he had to mess with the squid.

 “You may be a Jarhead and if you want someone dead, you call in the Marines, but if you want the enemy alive, one doesn’t let the trigger-happy leathernecks near the target! So that means you don’t let them plan either! The plan would include shooting, shooting some more, shooting until everybody is dead and then go get a beer.”

 “And Navy plans?” Dean raised an eyebrow. “The Navy designed and invented a ship that has a main purpose of sinking. And the Seals, last time I checked, were more gun happy than a Marine.”

 George laughed. “Fine. Abby?”

 Abby sighed. She knew their fights were just to release tension and laugh. “It sounds good. But don’t take Dean shopping. We will end up having mooing steaks and beer for every meal.”

 Dean smiled. “Well, I say we get some bacon too! No rabbit food for this guy!”

 “Dean go with Auggie. Martin, go with Joseph and get what you need. Stay together, in your pairs.” Abby ordered.

 “Yes, ma’am!” They chanted and then left.

 Abby sighed and hit her head against the wall. She did not want to let them go alone, but she did not really have a choice. She had to let them go, without a safety net, as she would not always be around to save them. They had to save themselves. 

She closed her eyes and went into her magic and focused upon the McKinnon spots of souls. She winced at seeing how many were in one spot, but moved on from them. She searched out Leslie. She only wanted her. She focused on a picture of the globe. She focused upon the spot the same color of emerald as the McKinnon eyes of greed. She found the green and focused on the source. After a bit of time, it focused and Abby nodded. She was still in town. She was still near. She focused closer. A street. A warehouse. She threw her soul onto the street. She looked at the building and got an address. She knew where she was now and soon she would have her brother’s final gift to her back. She let her soul slam back into her body. She gasped at the felling of coming back to the present. She saw the others were not back yet. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. She needed to visit her other realms really quickly. 

 Abby was startled back to Earth. Thankfully, she was not doing anything but checking the stability of her other plants. She had one going into a black hole as their sun died. But that was the basic order of things. She had only ever favored Earth, as it was her first realm she created with her brothers. Though seen as a baby in comparison, mostly because she was an angel and she could mess up the timeline, that was not at all linear and more squiggly and knotty. “Good, you are back.”

 “And so are you.” Dean stated as he dropped the next load of supplies on the bed next to her. “Where was that mind of yours, Abs?”

 “Checking my other realms, other plants. One is dying soon. Had to make sure everything was steady and everything was going to plan.” She shrugged.

 Dean nodded. “So, when are you going to kill Earth?”

 Abby shrugged as she looked through the bags and grabbed a bottle of water. “Never if I don’t have to; Earth is my favorite child, so to say.” She gave a sad smile. “But you mortals may one day force my hand. I lived with the abandonment of my family for too long for that to be the reason I suddenly throw in the towel.” She shrugged again in the ‘what are you going to do about it’ kind of way. “It is what it is. That is all it is.” She finished the bottle of water.

 “Well, where is the ring, Angel?” Joseph leaned against the doorway into the room. He saw her falling into darkness again. And that was just wrong, that the woman who sacrificed everything just for her mortals to live had to worry about falling into darkness, despair, and sadness.

 “Not too far from here, about fifteen miles away on the outskirts of town in an old abandoned warehouse.” Abby stated as she rolled out the map and showed them the location. “We need the building plans.”

 Joseph took out a laptop, and within moments, had the building plans. “Here you go, Angel.”

 Abby looked at him. “Do I even want to know if any of that was legal?”

 “Nope.”

 Abby looked at him and nodded. “Very well.” She pointed to a place on the screen. “I say we enter here.” And that started off an argument about the best way to get the stone back.

Abby closed her eyes. They had been arguing for hours about how to get the ring back. Dean and George looked at each other and nodded. They snuck away, with nobody noticing. Abby went back to the map. “I am serious; I think we should have entry points here, here, and here.” Abby stated, pointing to the windows and not the doors. Which got Martin started once more on how windows were a bad idea. Seems the ninja really fucking hated windows. At least the strong views he had against them made it seem that way.

 Dean and George moved toward the warehouse, and Dean looked at the lock on the door. “You sure about this, Squid?”

 “I am. You chickening out, Jarhead?” George smirked.

 “Never. Doesn’t the Navy have a policy of sending in the Marines if they want something done right?”

 George laughed. “No, we send in Marines if we want something not alive.”

 Dean shrugged. “Same thing.” He smirked as he picked the lock.

 George took the right, and Dean took the left. It seemed nobody was really there; and that was a good thing because they really did not think this through. George motioned they should meet in the middle before going into the room off the center of the building. Dean nodded and made his way over that way.

 They made it to the center and, once there, Dean opened the door. “Oh, shit.” 

 George looked and sighed. There in the room was Leslie, holding a ring in her hand and sitting on a throne, surrounded by about ten of her minions. Of course, he sighed and shook his head when Dean charged forward into the center, but followed him.

 Leslie smirked. “Well, if it isn’t little Keepers.” She stood and tried to look sexy. Both men wanted to gag. She may be gorgeous by standards, but she was one of the ugliest beings on the planet.

 “Well, if it isn’t an egotistical witch.” Dean stated as he got into a fighting stance. “I mean, who the hell actually has a throne nowadays?”

 Leslie sneered. “Kill them!” She issued the people surrounding her.

 George swore as he took out his knife and jumped into the fray. “Dean, I swear I will beat some common sense into your ass if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

 Dean laughed as he knocked two people out. Thankfully, there were only ten of the minions. “Good luck, Squid! Greater men than you have tried!”

 The fight did not take that long. Shocking when you considered the woman poached on the ones that held the potential to save the world. George looked at Dean and then at Leslie. “Woman, give us the ring.”

 Leslie smirked. “No.”

 Dean moved up behind her as George took her in front. “Well then, we will just have to take it.” Dean stated as he jumped at her. Leslie moved quickly but not quickly enough and fell to the floor. She dropped the ring, and it rolled away. George was standing closest to it and picked it up.

 George smirked. “Want to try it now?”

 Leslie sneered and elbowed Dean in the gut and then took off running. “I will kill you both.” She yelled back.

 Dean looked at George. “Let’s get back.”

 George looked at him. “You look like shit.”

 “You ain’t no better.” Dean drawled.

 George laughed.

 August was watching the others argue. “Wait, where are Dean and George?”

 Abby looked up from where she and Martin were discussing something. “What, August?”

 “Dean and George are gone…”

 Abby swore. “Did any of you see them…” she did not get to finish as the door to the suite burst opened. “Dean! George!” She exclaimed, seeing the condition they were in.

 Dean and George were bloody. Each had black eyes and a bunch of cuts and bruises. “Hey Abs!” Dean greeted.

 “What did you do?” She asked, as she and Sakura moved to sit them down.

 “We went to go get the ring.” George stated, in a duh sort of tone. And held out the ring to her.

 Abby took the ring and looked at it. It was her ring. It was the last thing Lucifer gave her. She put it on her finger. “How did you know?”

 Dean laughed and then winced, holding his ribs. “Crazy bitch, blue ring, no so hard there, Abs.” He winced again as Sakura poked his side and Abby smacked him on the back of the head.

 “Nothing broken. But you will have to have a wrap. Both of you.” Sakura stated and went to get the supplies.

 “That was bloody reckless! You could have been killed!” Abby yelled at them. She sent a glare to Joseph, Martin, and August, who were standing in the background trying not to laugh.

 Both men looked at each other and then pointed at the other. “It was his idea!” They both yelled.

 Abby put her hand on her face and sighed. “Let’s try not to do so again. You both look like shit.”

 “It wouldn’t be as bad if the Jarhead followed the plan!” George pushed at Dean’s shoulder.

 “What plan? The plan sucked. I mean, it was a Navy plan from a Squid, and it fell apart in like three seconds!”

 Abby sighed. “Stop fighting. Now that we have the ring, you two can heal a bit and we can leave in a couple of days to find our last Keeper. Now get some sleep.” Abby stated, and walked away.

 “Hey!” Dean called before they left. “Who are we going to go get next?”

 “Kendra Porter, Twenty-Three: Chicago Illinois.”