Page 18 of Sins of Leo

“Pretty sure that isn’t a word.”

“Not one you’d know. However, starbeaming is real, but only something people like me can do.”

“People like you,” she repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m a Zodiac Warrior. Someone who used to be a regular human but was chosen by some higher astral power to serve Earth. Never understood why they picked me, but whatever the reason, I was transformed, my body physically changed, giving me the ability to use my constellation to travel anywhere in the world.”

She digested his claim and laughed. Laughed somewhat hysterically. “I must still be dreaming. That, or you’ve somehow managed to drag me into your delusion.”

He sighed. “You are not dreaming.”

“Zodiac is a name for the constellations in the sky.”

“Yes.”

“You might be called Leo, but that doesn’t give you a special connection to that grouping of stars,” she bluntly stated.

“My name is Leo now, but I was born with a different one.”

“Of course you were,” she muttered. Why did her mind insist on pulling this garbage with her? Perhaps she was injured and in a coma. It would explain why she couldn’t wake.

“What will it take to prove this is real?”

She opened her mouth, only nothing emerged because she didn’t know the answer to that. Everything seemed real, from the hard floor she sat on, to the fragrant air, to the room she was certain she’d never seen before and seemed unlikely to have imagined. “You can’t, because everything you’ve claimed thus far is impossible.”

“Not impossible, just unknown to the majority of the world. Trust me, I had questions, too, when I was recruited to be a Zodiac Warrior.”

She pursed her lips. “And what does a Zodiac Warrior do?”

“Protect the world from evil.”

The laughter erupted again, leading him to scowl.

“I’m not joking. It is our task to protect humanity from things they don’t understand and can’t handle.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“The monster that took my wife and child for one,” he snapped. “And before you speak, you should know it wasn’t a human serial killer but a wendigo, a very hungry and bloodthirsty monster.”

“Says you.”

“Yes, says me. Do you not recall they never found the killer’s body? That they never even managed to find out its identity or any detail about them?”

She did remember that tidbit, the whole city did. There’d been fear for months after the police found the bodies that the killer would resume the grisly murders.

“Wendigos are a legend.”

“A legend based in truth. Most monsters exist. The only reason the world thinks them fake is because we handle them.”

“By handle?—”

“If they cause trouble, we kill them.” A flat reply.

“That man in the alley and those who entered my office weren’t monsters.”

“No, they were mercenaries for hire, making them worse. They chose to do evil, unlike monsters, who can’t help their nature.”

“What makes you any different from the men you killed?” she interjected.

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