An Angel's Touch 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

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  An Angel’s Touch

  The Mark of Chaos Series ~ Book Two

  Susan D Kalior

  Blue Wing Publications, Workshops, and Lectures

  An Angel’s Touch

  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

  Poems by Sara C. Roethle

  Blue Wing Publications, Workshops, and Lectures

  [email protected]

  www. bluewingworkshops.com

  Readers’ comments are welcomed.

  Other Books by Susan D. Kalior

  Warriors in the Mist: A Medieval Dark Fantasy

  The Dark Side of Light: A Time Travel Fantasy

  Johnny, the Mark of Chaos

  The Other Side of God: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Being

  The Other Side of Life: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Death

  The Other Side of Self: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Plurality

  Growing Wings Self-Discovery Workbook:

  17 Workshops to a Better Life-Vol. One

  Growing Wings Self-Discovery Workbook:

  18 Workshops to a Better Life-Volume Two

  The Simple Guide to Feeling Better

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Two

  Untitled

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Note From the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “I am the fatal fire of rage

  my deeds remain untold

  you see me as the burning sun

  a fire to warm the cold.

  The light may be forever

  the world may always turn

  but after day comes quiet night

  my flame will always burn.

  An endless feud of love and hate

  you try to save my soul

  you cannot fight the darkness

  my fire will eat you whole.

  Yet love can warm the coldest heart

  love turns hard stone to lace

  love can bind the light to dark

  in a single warm embrace.

  You've given me your light and love

  you've given me a chance

  I'll walk with you for all of time

  and in the flames we'll dance.”

  Chapter One

  Present Day Chile - South of Puerto Montt

  Her name was Jenséa, Angel of the dreams I never had. My kind don’t dream, not like humans anyway. And if we did, it would not be of Angels. Jenséa had grown tougher than when I first met her, but she was still—as they say, ‘pure as the driven snow.’ I was a diabolical sort, a creature of the night unbound by human law, and of late, not so bound by my own. And that was this: The call for chaos shall be answered. Sinners and martyrs were my best clientele.

  Jenséa, Jen I called her, was a martyr of the first kind. She ‘called,’ but I could not abide. Her spirit outshined all, growing more brilliant as I liberated her from the trappings of convention, namely orthodox religion.

  I pulled her out of bed early this morning, and we hopped a jet from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport to my Chilean homeland. We located my people, the Alaculufes, a primitive nomadic Indian tribe. I left Jen back at their camp in an animal hide tent—slumbering, curled cozily on a guanaco fur blanket in a pocket of warmth I magically created to counter September’s chill.

  And I, I was prowling for my midnight meal, in clothes less black than my heart: sleeveless sweatshirt, jeans, and leather boots. I appeared human, mostly: arms, legs, the whole bit. My one anomaly I concealed under black fingerless gloves: a reddish ridge on my hands extending middle knuckle to wrist. Not too odd, con sidering my parents were one quarter Dragon. Yes, Dragons are real. My Tazmark mother was Alacalufe, and my Tazmark father Castilian. This rendered me a Spanish look: cinnamon skin, defined cheekbones, amber eyes, and jet-black hair trailing down my back.

  In white mist, I pressed through the dense beech forest compacted with shrubs and herbs. The tenacious foliage scraped my arms but bore no scratches. The moist air dampened my hair, but not my skin. Hot and cold neutralized before touching my body. I was immune to disease, and impervious to attack, immortal as fiction. Only supernatural weather, beings, and means could harm me. I was not ordinary, but I had my part to play in the ordinary world.

  I smelled the scent of a blue fox, the payne-guru. I thrust my face down into the broad leaf bushes; its heartbeat pitter-pattered loud in my ears. Food, I required food, but only meat appeased me: fresh, raw, human. The fox would not do. I would pursue what Jen pretended I didn’t—people, that is.

  My eyes functioned well in the dark. I spied my target in a maroon aura near the Sinfondo River next to a poisonous litha tree. The village witchdoctor sat cross-legged in a multicolored striped tunic and tight guanaco leggings, dark face pulsing sinister intent through the cave of his yard long, black hair. He chanted a magical suicide spell, death marking the self-deprecating husband of a comely woman. I heard the husband calling . . . calling in a tone that started low and rose shrilly. This was the call for suffering. From the witchdoctor, I heard a pulsing low tone emitting hawk-like screeches. This was the call for mischief.

  The witchdoctor was answering the husband's call for pain. Hey . . . my job. Witchdoctor be damned. The witchdoctor’s call for mischief would be answered—by me, a god of sorts, a malevolent god that is.

  Alaculufes traditionally believed only malevolent gods existed—gods they must be appease, lest famine, war, and natural disaster befell them. To prove their devotion, they killed the weak and innocent in ritual sacrifice. Tribal law had outmoded such rituals, but in truth, the practice was not obsolete.

  Tonight's sacrifice would be to me. And the sacrificed would be the wee little mouse, witchdoctor—he.

  I approached my prey with a ghostly glide, eager to surprise and shock my victim whom the Alaculufes dreaded, the wee little mouse, witch doctor—he. He'd robbed the tribe of their finest possessions and surrounded himself with the most beautiful daughters of the most prestigious chiefs, hexing the families that denied him what he desired. Sometimes his hexes caused death to those who didn’t put out ‘the call.’ Can be done, if the spirit allows. Psychopaths annoyed me.

  My mor
als weren’t much higher. In fact, they were lower. Even so, I’d promised Jen I’d devour only the most contemptible humans, determined by the state of their aura. The witchdoctor’s dense, dark aura traced his body like a border. This reflected a pygmy conscience. Although I had none, except for Jen, I spared whom she wished, as long as it wasn’t everyone, which was her truest wish—my doom. But tonight, doom belonged to the wee little mouse, witchdoctor—he.

  I came closer, closer. He became an ‘it’ to me, void of importance or personage. My prey was nothing more than the object of my maxim. And that was this: Extract its spirit, delete its shell.

  Its head snapped this way and that, listening . . . looking . . . sensing me, but not seeing me. My extrasensory ears heard its heartbeat quicken. I inhaled its fear, a mere appetizer of the meal to come.

  I killed hedonistically, but that is not why I killed. I killed to survive. And survive I must, lest Jen not. The very nature of the earth planet would not allow her pure heart to thrive among the bestial masses. She was a Shen, you see, a human angel. She appeared common, even to herself. But she was rare, as rare as me. Her purity fed me. As long as I kept her alive, it is as they say, ‘the gift that keeps on giving.’

  I blew away the mist and made myself glow red as I stepped closer to my food. My prey spotted me, flaring eyes to show power. But it had no power over me. No human did. Its malefic thoughts drove threats into my brain. Meaningless threats. Soon I would change into the culmination of what it is to be Tazmark. I relished toying with my prey for fun-filled hours before the kill, but tonight, rejoining my Shen interested me more. Death would be quick for the wee little mouse witchdoctor—he. It would hate realizing I was its diabolic superior. Dethroning it—that was my pleasure.

  I stepped up to it, smoothly, coolly with deliberate mystical demeanor. My boots crunched twigs. A telmatobufo bullocki toad hopped out of my way, and a sixteen-inch, black spotted kodcod cat sat studiously in an Antarctic beech tree—watching.

  My prey’s pumper sounded like an acid rock band. Ah, fear. Fear tantalized me and intensified blood’s fragrance. Ah, blood. I inhaled deeply, aroused by the smell, teasing my taste buds with the promise of drinking the smooth sweet elixir, porous with energy. Ah, energy! Molten urges oozed through my body. I ached for—more. Growing, tingling, itching, changing. My skin transformed to coal black scales. My forehead produced ridges. A short snout emerged, featuring two fangs in my wide-lipped mouth. My orange eyes, engorged with Dragon energy, became an uninviting portal to the inferno that is me. My black hair flowed long behind three-inch webbed extensions at my temples. And though my body hardened, it retained human shape, maintaining the integrity of my clothing. My fingertips sprouted long, black, barbed nails, aching to rip flesh. I reveled in my orgasmic transmogrification into the dragonman.

  My prey’s cold orbs flickered fear as it hurled an illusion at me: my shrunken head hanging on a pole in front of its straw hut. How meager a ploy to dissuade me. My own magic was a thousand times stronger.

  Tazmarkian verse slipped through my lips:

  “They call us the destroyers.

  They blame us for their woe.

  They never understand,

  we reap the seeds they sow.”

  My prey rose. Skinny, little it. It backed up slowly, with bare dirty feet, attempting to burst my heart with its mediocre mind.

  With a mere thought, I paralyzed its legs and arms. Its bulging eyes screamed terror. Its tongue hung from its gaping, bass-shaped mouth.

  Saliva dripped off the points of my fangs. I was very hungry. Stepping up to it, I magically removed its striped tunic. Its dark eyes stretched down to see the tunic in a heap at its feet.

  I stared at its bare brown chest, shrouding a feast of delicious organs.

  In Alacalufe, it said, “No, please, I will make sacrifices to you. You are the god, not me.”

  Reaching my black scaly finger to its neck, my barbed onyx nail punctured flesh. Blood swallowed the tip of my nail and I scraped the carotid artery. Blood beads erupted. Hundred dollar perfume to me. Potion of gods.

  It whimpered. Music to my ears.

  I pushed my face to the wound introducing my long, narrow tongue to the blood amassing along the scrape. I licked it into my mouth. Metallically delicious. More. I wanted more.

  It said, in Alacalufe, “No, please.”

  I dug in my fangs, creating two deep holes. Blood oozed. I suctioned my lips for a long warm drink. The highly viscous elixir slid down my throat, pooling in my stomach. Blood. Glorious blood.

  I brought up my head to view my prey’s pallid face. It wore a silly expression of horror, the expression it had extracted from countless others. This gratified me greatly. I stabbed my nails into its flesh under its ribcage. I shoved my hand inside its body, thrusting upward. I clutched its thick, slimy beating pumper and ripped it from the vena cavas' and the aorta. There in my hand, it had its last beat. A spurt of blood dribbled between my fingers.

  My prey fell, smacking ground, landing on its clay pot stuffed with burning lithe tree sap, animal parts, and human excrement. Its spirit loosened from its body. I lifted my blood-soaked lips and inhaled the vaporous energy.

  A single spirit has the force of a small sun. This is not generally understood because size is too often equated with power. But power condensed is more potent than power expanded. The spirit entered me, a heat rush high no drug could match. My mind whirled with explosions of light. My blood cells sponged new life. Cold power ran in my veins, engorging my body tissues with fresh vigor, flooding my mind with flashes of genius. I felt . . . reborn, not like taking a Shen, no, but it was enough to sustain me.

  The lifeless body had a nothing stare. The night had become quiet. What had been near was now far away. Even the kodcod cat had run off into the night.

  Blood quenched my thirst. Now to quench hunger. I bit into the tasty left ventricle and tore off a hunk. Sanguine broth gushed over my tongue, soaking my incisors. I chewed and swallowed, rapturously intoxicated. Then I stuffed the whole delicacy into my enlarged mouth. “Mm,” the satisfaction. “Mm.”

  I sank to my knees, tearing into my victim's body with claw and fang like a beast, like the beast I am. In bloody reverie, I devoured the spleen, liver, and kidneys. Heaviness weighted my stomach. Alas, I was full on the wee little mouse, witchdoctor—he. Sated at last.

  I rubbed my scaly belly and stretched, inhaling frosty air with a satisfying yawn. I turned my head toward the remnants of my prey and hissed long white flames. The remnants became ash, growing mushy on the damp ground.

  The Alaculufes would fear the witchdoctor no more. Me, perhaps, but I didn’t intend to stay long. The Alacalufes were too wild for my Jen. I brought her here to my Chilean homeland to draw out her maternal instincts that she might give me the one thing no Tazmark had ever received—the unconditional love of a Shen. Shens were hard to come by. In nine centuries, I’d only known five. After a long stretch of diabolic fun—filled years, I ate them, all but Jen—that is. I would never eat Jen. I came close once, and once it will remain.

  My human form returned, blood stained and dappled with organ tissues. I waded into the cold, loud river, clothes and all. The rushing water would have swept an ordinary man downstream, but I was strong, and the current massaged me pleasantly. I ducked under the river's surface, washing away the remnants of my kill. I burst my head up into the night air, and shook excess water off my long black hair, droplets flying about me.

  I had to make certain Jen would not see blood, lest she recoil and shun me one more time, heaped on a pile of times that had grown into a mountain of rejection. I was still waiting for her to accept me. Waiting. Waiting. What little she knew of me was still too much for her. However could she accept more?

  Ah, the forceful water felt good. I craved sensation—always. But I wanted to get back to Jen, so I trudged out of the river onto the lush fern bank. From a beech tree, a screeching noise cracked the night. It was a Magellan horned owl call
ing for its mate. Oh, I empathized. Jen was hard to hold. For that reason, I impregnated her with my seed. She was unaware twins grew inside her, two weeks along. I smelled the change in her body when she conceived. I’m capable of producing children in the summer of every sixth year. I’d led her to believe this was the infertile fifth year. It was the first and only lie I’d ever told her.

  I stood on the bank and whispered, “Calidus ventus.” A warm magical wind rose and blew against my body, whipping my hair behind my back. I could magically think myself clean and dry, but I preferred physical sensation.

  Tazmarks are dull, tactilely and emotionally. That is why I enjoy alcohol and cigarettes, or anything that can intensify feeling. Except drugs—the chemicals change me into Tazmark form without my consent. Possessiveness had a similar affect, making me do things against my true wishes, like getting Jen pregnant. I didn’t want these creatures growing in Jen’s belly, not really. But if I didn’t further bind her to me, she might one day want to rupture our tie. Not that she would succeed, but I didn’t like it when she tried. My strategy was unkind, I know, but I never claimed to be kind. I couldn’t tell if the babies would be Shen, embodied Angels like her—or Tazmark, of the Dragons blood, like me—or any combination thereof.

  I whispered, “Consistere ventus,” and the wind stopped. My black sleeveless shirt, jeans, and leather boots were dry. I touched the little gold crucifix on my neck. Oh, not because I was religious or anything. No, I was thinking of Jen. It had been hers. I wore it to remind me that the emotions I craved came only by sacrificing for my Shen.