The Mark of Chaos Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Two

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mark of Chaos

  The Mark of Chaos Series ~ Book One

  Susan D Kalior

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part Two

  Untitled

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Note From the Author

  Other Books by Susan D. Kalior

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Mark of Chaos

  The Mark of Chaos Series-Book One

  Part Two Poem by Sara C. Roethle

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

  Published by Blue Wing Publications, Workshops, and Lectures

  [email protected]

  www.bluewingworkshops.com

  Readers’ comments are welcomed.

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter One

  His name was johnny. He lived on the Lower East Side in an apartment that overlooked a violent street in New York City. Some said he liked it there because it befit his underlying nature.

  He was a “new ager,” you know, a dabbler into the occult: astrology, E.S.P, reincarnation—that sort of thing. I was personally skeptical of anyone who epitomized a trend, but I’d had problems then, of a nature . . . well—unearthly. I didn’t seek johnny. He sought me, in a most magical fashion—the dark variety.

  Who would have known that when I boarded the 757 jet that rainy July morning, my destination was into the serpent’s mouth. My aim was New York City for a three-week tour exhibiting my ‘ethereal’ paintings at an upstanding gallery on Fifth Avenue. I was an artist; that was my trade. My medium: pastel oils. My subject: angels. I made it to New York City. I never made it to the gallery.

  I buckled myself into my fuel-fragranced airplane seat. The gray fabric made the underside of my knees itch. I tried stretching the bottom part of my mint green sundress lower under my knees but it didn’t budge. Oh well, what was a little itching when my whole life of late mimicked an all new episode of the Twilight Zone starring me, and written by God knows who. Maybe God didn’t know. Maybe I was alone in this.

  I stared outside through a window smudge snubbed when the last bottle of Windex was called to duty. Toy-like people in crisp maroon uniforms tended the jumbo hunk of steel, each brisk and purposeful in mission. My purpose had grown stale. My mission—staying sane.

  Gurgling stomach acid burned my insides. I pressed my layered hands over my stomach, hoping the loud squirting would soften and spare me embarrassment. Nervous sweat seeped from my pallid skin, dampening my sundress. I wanted to remove the short-sleeved cropped cotton jacket that went with the dress and cool off, but I always felt safer covered up. However, the real cover was my apprehension, obscuring the source of my worry, which was my future and not my present. The present was bad enough.

  The last six months my artist’s brush had taken to blacks and reds. My stroke created horror—death scenes, demons, and the like. I didn’t want to create such scenes, but they seemed to create themselves. I suppose any great work of art does. Still, I was less than joyful that the horror paintings were my best work, so brilliantly painted, they gave even me the chills. I’d shown them to no one, and kept them locked in what I refer to as my Dark Room at my home in Spruce, Arizona. Also in that room, were certain . . . artifacts that were . . . well, to put it bluntly, instruments of death: guns, swords, spears, chains, and whips. I was compelled to buy them.

  The plane filled. I smelled baby powder. A mother in crisp dark blue jeans and a white designer blouse buckled her car seat-bound infant in the seat next to me. When she finished, she brushed back a blonde curl from her eye and glanced at me with a ‘hope you don’t mind’ expression on her face, swollen prettily with the glow redolent of lactating mothers. I yearned for my deceased mother like pure air. Damn.

  The woman buckled herself in aside her little red-faced darling, soft I bet, innocent for sure, like I was once. No more though, no more. I had an Uzi.

  Oh how my face had flushed when the curious eyes of gun shop owners and antique weapons dealers, perused me. I felt as if they knew of my sin, and had deemed me a fallen angel.

  Weaponry clashed with my appearance: slight boned willowy frame, whitish complexion sprinkled with faint freckles, azure eyes under silky yellow bangs melding into an even circle of straight, fine, chin-length hair. I resembled one of those little ceramic angels singing from a hymnbook with a puppy dog at her side. You know, the kind of figurines you buy your kids. I was twenty-four but commonly mistaken for a teenager. I’d much rather resemble one of those raven-haired women with mile high cheekbones that made them look like a cat, kind of wild and mischievous. Something in the deep recesses of my being wanted unleashing. Something dark. Something evil.

  The plane engines revved. I clutched the seat arms. I closed my eyes and gulped. I would push this evil down into the land of amnesia, so help me God. I willed tears to stay in my eyes. As long as I could cry . . . redemption was viable.

  The plane moved along for a few minutes, and then lifted. As the air pressure changed, I felt more peculiar with each passing second. This excursion was meant to dissipate my unstable feelings. Instead, my limbs shivered with feverish trepidation. My fingers dug deeper into the arms of my upholstered seat, for this plane, like the ghost of Christmas future, seemed like it was taking me into my nightmare, into the darkest recesses of my psyche . . . not away from, but into my horror paintings. I could feel it. Or . . . maybe I was just crazy.

  The plane leveled. I grabbed my stomach, sickened by bumping motions. Airplane turbulence. Hot, I was so hot. Ill, I was too ill to be flying. The baby bound in the car seat next to me started fussing. Suddenly, I wanted to flee the plane, but like the infant, I felt fastened to my destiny. And unlike the infant, I felt sucked into iniquity by the vacuum cleaner of fate, an insignificant spec of dirt. The infant’s mother wedged a pacifier devotedly into the baby’s mouth. No such pacifier for me. I was going to hell.

  I’d always been the religious sort—good little Catholic girl and all that, hoping always for a perfect world of love, if only we could all quit sinning. And there I was with my dark secret, the greatest sinner of all. I’d upped my visits to church and just in case Satan was messing with me, I always wore a little gold crucifix that hung around my neck on a thin gold chain. The air turbulence didn’t stop. To crash and die would be a blessing, but if the plane crashed, all wo
uld suffer. How dare I! I touched my crucifix and prayed for redemption, but redemption was not on the menu.

  Back to johnny. My best friend and manager, Randa McCrea, had mentioned him to me a few times over the last year, claiming that he was not only a talented astrologer and master of the occult, but also an enigmatic libertine and street tough miracle worker. Ah, a man without rules. Now that was a sin. And a sinner who performed miracles. Now that was a lie. Angels performed miracles, and that is why I painted them.

  Back to Randa. Randa had always watched out for me, ever since I’d met her in the sixth grade, when her family moved from New York City to my tiny town. But small town life was never for her. When she turned eighteen, she moved back to New York City and inherited her aunt’s auspicious business, becoming one of the most prosperous art dealers in the country.

  Back to the unpleasant airplane ride. I dozed frequently in a delirium reminiscent of malaria, and consumed only scant food and soda. Somewhere in there, we landed at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and took off again. Once, I jolted awake with the ghastly vision of blood-soaked, pointy teeth. After that, I just wanted to get to Randa’s, desperate to feel one safe solitary moment in the arms of my best friend.

  Randa had given me much, including artistic success. Well, that’s not entirely true. I was gifted with an exceptional talent to paint—a child prodigy really, and it was a good thing, because other than religion, I had no interests. And other than Randa, I had no friends, not even boyfriends. My life long introversion kept people from approaching me. Well, nice people anyway.

  The jet circled round and round La Guardia Airport like a rendition of the well-honored tradition of “Ring Around the Rosie.” Finally, we approached the runway, baby screaming with ear pain. I was screaming too. Only no one could hear me.

  The plane landed bumpily. I sighed with relief when it finally stopped. Ah, the quiet. Ah, the still. My turn came to get off the jet with another adventure waiting to occur. I exited down the esophagus of the tunneled airplane ramp and made my way to baggage claim where I’d agreed to meet Randa. I would be staying with her in her plush Upper East Side condominium.

  There she was, looking oh so dilettante in her short-skirted red suit and matching pumps with three and a half inch wedged heels. She was a New Yorker through and through Cleopatra-like short black hair, long red nails, and flaming red lipstick—a high fashion, jet-setting, decadent, partying socialite. Her eyes lit when she saw me. She dashed my way and pecked my cheek with a kiss.

  She propelled us through a solid crowd to the designated baggage carousel that would spit out my luggage, wormed herself to the forefront, snatched my old-fashioned, no-wheel, floral cloth suitcase, enlisted a sky cap, tipped him twenty dollars, hailed a black and white taxicab, and off we sped to the Upper East Side. Randa would describe that as smooth sailing. I would describe it as running the gauntlet. Conveying my opinion to her would merely have yielded the reply, ‘Nonsense.’ That was Randa: diligent, gregarious, all fireballs and boxing gloves.

  By the time the taxi pulled up to her condominium, she had extracted my dark secret by pecking away at my thin facade until I cracked. Still, I should have known better than to tell her that particular secret, because it was then she insisted I see johnny. We entered her opulent building through full-size, brass-lined double doors and went through a maze of gray marbled hallway, into the ritzy brass-walled elevator that reflected my image. I could view my image, but who was I—really? What was I becoming? Up we went. But inside, I was going down.

  “johnny is the best astrologer in the state,” Randa said, like a mother bragging about her child.

  I replied, “But . . . but astrology is evil.”

  The elevator doors slid open with a high-speed whoosh that made me queasy. Randa surged into the gray-marbled hall with my suitcase, chest leading the way. “Astrology is chic.”

  I puffed my cheeks with all the air I could possibly muster and exhaled slowly, plodding behind her. I wasn’t going to win this one. She unlocked the condo door. We stepped into her clean white mansion, trimmed in red, accessorized with gold and glass. She dropped the suitcase, swooped in on her Picasso art decor phone situated on a brass-trimmed glass end table, and dialed johnny’s number.

  She was as bossy as she looked, and I had trepidations about her exposing my disturbing little secret to every Joe or johnny that she thought could assist me. I slid past her between the gold-lined glass coffee table and white leather sofa. I sat, knees knocked together with locked hands speared in my lap like a child in line for a booster shot.

  “Hello johnny. My best friend and famed artist, Jenséa Renlé, has an occult problem, shall we say . . . of a dark nature. I would like to schedule a reading for her pronto.”

  I blushed, moving into a slow motion curl facing a couch corner, hands over face. A red leather couch pillow, unbalanced by my motion, fell from its picture-perfect posture, plopping against my unyielding hands. But neither hands nor pillow could hide my embarrassment of her depiction of me to this stranger. And soon he’d know the horrid truth. Admitting this truth to me was hard enough.

  She told johnny the date, time, and place of my birth. I cursed her silently, and I did so for a long time to come.

  She hung up the phone with a smug expression. “He says he’ll calculate your chart. Then he’ll decide if he’ll see you.”

  I uncurled myself and sat up. “If?” I asked, hopeful that he’d deny me access into his occult world. I should be turning to a priest not an astrologer. No, no priest, for I would simply and utterly die of shame.

  Randa’s eloquently pointed face held assurance. Her chocolate brown eyes peeked out under long black lashes. “I mean, he’ll assess your astrological chart and determine if you’re worth his time. But don’t worry, you will be. The particulars of your problem will be in your chart progressions, and he’ll know what you are dealing with before you say a word. And I’m sure he’ll deem your case all too intriguing to turn away.”

  “Where does he live?”

  Randa hesitated, and then spoke casually, “Lower East Side.”

  I scowled, fearing the element there, even though I’d heard it was undergoing renovation. Prejudice is a horrible thing. I kneaded my hands, and braved the question, “Where . . . in the Lower East Side?”

  Randa lowered her eyes. She sucked in a breath and held it, a gesture of stalling, and a look of guilt.

  Oh geez, not good. “Randa! Where?”

  She exhaled, almost perturbed, “Alphabet City. It’s not so bad. Many people go there. You really didn’t need to know this, Jenséa.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me? Didn’t you think I’d notice?” I rolled my eyes and mumbled sarcastically, “He’s probably an East River resident, and a member of the ‘Look at me wrong and you’re dead’ club.”

  “You are blowing everything out of proportion. That area has improved significantly. There is nothing to fear.”

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “What Avenue?”

  Randa made an attempt at nonchalant. “Avenue D.”

  My eyes widened. “Avenue D!” My heart pounded in my ears. Ah, panic. Oh, terror. I dropped verbal bombs on Randa in rapid succession. “How can you act so casually about that neighborhood? Your stepbrother’s car was taken apart there and he was beaten to a pulp. Your cousin died from drugs over there too, and didn’t his girlfriend land in prison? How could you think that I would ever, ever, ever venture into that sordid neighborhood? It’s a crime zone, a war zone! We’ll be molested! We’ll be robbed! We’ll be murdered! What if johnny is a con man, a thief, a gangster! I can’t go there. I just can’t. I can’t and I won’t.”

  Randa raised a brow coolly like Lauren Bacall in a Humphrey Bogart movie. “Fine Jenséa, but remember this. Who could better help you confront your troubles with the dark side of life than a man who lives there?”

  I glared at her, mad-dog style.

  “Who could better advise you than a man to whom I’ve
referred dozens of troubled friends, all who have returned overwhelmingly inspired?”

  My glare softened.

  “And who could better protect you than a man so street savvy, the criminally-minded gravitate away from him.”

  “Even so, Randa, this idea is insane and unholy.”

  “What’s unholy is your dark little secret, and what’s sane is going to someone who can help you make sense of it.”

  My eyes shot sideways in defeat. My bombs had exploded, all gone now, doing no damage at all. They never did. Besides, the biggest bomb of all was waiting to detonate in my Dark Room back home, and I—the victim. I didn’t know how to disarm it. Maybe johnny did.

  “All right,” I said.

  An hour passed. Randa had consumed three cigarettes and two glasses of scotch with regal impatience. Her eloquent way of handling things ever amazed me. I sat there in my soiled mint green sundress and little matching jacket, wringing my hands and tapping my feet. I bit down my nails, drank lemonade, and nibbled on cheese and crackers. I was not so eloquent.

  My thoughts were busy with crime on Avenue D. Considering that, I hoped johnny would say no. Yet, somewhere deep inside me I needed him to say yes.

  The phone rang. I jumped.

  Randa left her half-poured scotch and soda behind on the gold-trimmed, glass wet bar and streaked across the living room. She grabbed the phone on the end table next to me. After a brief pause, she said, “Very well. She’ll be there within the hour.” She hung up the phone and smiled coyly. “You’re in.”

  My heart fluttered. “Today! He wants to see me . . . today?” My stomach gurgled. “Now?” I wrung my hands. “But it’s so late in the day, almost evening, and I’m tired from traveling.”