An Angel's Touch Page 15

  “Aruka brought you into the Portal of Time.”

  She crunched her brow. “The what?”

  I took her wrists and pulled her sideways so that her feet dangled over the edge of the green stone altar. I clasped her ribcage and lifted her down to stand barefooted on the white, silver veined, compressed air floor. Pinkish-white vapors wafted upward around her feet. I said, “From here, you can access any time period.”

  Her puzzled expression remained.

  “Access, you know, go into.”

  Her eyes transfixed upon my face for a moment. Mild stirrings filled her features. “This is a romantic illusion that you created to make up for the baby thing, right?”

  I stroked the side of her temple. “I could tell you, yes. But do you wish me to lie?”

  She shook her head. “When is this going to end, johnny?”

  “When is what going to end?”

  “All this shocking news.”

  “Just accept it. It’s real. Denying it does not make it go away.”

  She gasped. “Wait. I know, I’m dreaming. And I had a dream within a dream.”

  Now, this I wanted to hear, curious to learn how she’d processed this last event. “Tell me about your dream.”

  “I was in that terrible life again—” she looked down, “—with the monks who . . . you know . . .” She peeked up at me. “A Frenchman, who turned out to be an avenging angel, rescued me. He used his sword against many to free me. Then I—” her face reddened, “made love with him—in heaven.” She stroked my cheek. “I am sorry I dreamed that johnny. I would never cheat on you.”

  “You didn’t. The Frenchman was me.”

  She cocked her head. “You were in my dream?”

  “You weren’t dreaming.” I took her hand and pulled her along across the compressed air floor. “Mother sent you back in time. She can be cruel. Don’t trust her anymore, no matter how likable she seems.”

  She froze, and slipped her hand from mine. “Stop playing games. Your mother loves me. She is watching out for me, just as you are.”

  I turned to face her. “She sent you back in time to suffer.”

  “johnny,” her mouth hung open, “you can’t go back in time. And if you believe that, then you are crazier than me. Maybe you came into my dream. You’ve done it before. I could accept that. And maybe you have a magical propensity to destroy in the here and now, I’ve seen you do that. Or . . . or take me into other realms, yes, I understand how that can happen. But this is too much. It’s like saying that nothing ever really ends or begins because it is always happening, and nothing can be resolved because it is always being undone, or undone because it is always being resolved, and what would be the point in living?” She started hyperventilating, “I mean, I don’t want to believe it, even if it is true.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not,” I said. “I don’t care.” And I didn’t, not about that, only that she believed in me, in my purpose, in my merit. And if I could help it, she would, before leaving this Portal. Not my idea to do it this way. Mother brought her here, and here she was, so here it would be. I would capitalize upon the situation.

  Her eyes widened. “I get it. This is just another realm, like the fifth or the sixth.”

  “No, this is not another realm. It is more like where the earth comes from, where life as you know it—is . . . before it manifests.”

  “johnny, no! How could you know all these things? How can you travel into all these strange worlds? I don’t think you can. I think I am just crazy, and that these worlds are all in my head.”

  “Everything in your head exists somewhere, somehow.”

  She pressed her hands over her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. “You can make all this disappear now.”

  “No, I can’t. This place is real.”

  Her eyes flew open. “It isn’t!”

  “It is.”

  “I know you can create illusions, and this is definitely one of them.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to dream this any more. Stop it johnny. I want to wake up now.”

  “Not until I’ve shown you something.” I grabbed her hand and dragged her over misty ground to the edge of a black vortex. She glanced into the blackness, ribbed with light waves.

  “This is real, Jen.”

  She whimpered. “No, I’m hallucinating, because I’m . . . insane.” She hugged her stomach and stepped back from the vortex. “Whatever happened to normal life?”

  “Normal?” I said, glaring at her.

  “Life was never normal. I make it seem normal. It is a method of control. It’s the trance I put people in, so that I can get them on the right plane doomed to crash, or the wrong building targeted for collapse.”

  Her stillness was razor sharp. “Stop . . . talking . . . that . . . way.”

  But I didn’t. “Haven’t you ever noticed that people who live by rote are always awakened with a thunder clap of tragedy? If not for me, they’d live the life of zombies. If they choose to awaken, they slide under their Angel’s protection, dead or alive. If they choose to go back to their zombie sleep, they are mine.”

  She thrust her little fists in the air. “I don’t believe you!”

  “It’s true.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “It is.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Few escape me. I am tragedy. I want you to appreciate that.”

  “God, johnny! Oh, Blessed Saints!”

  I squinted one eye, vexed by her choice of words.

  She acknowledged my vexation. “Well, I have to talk like that because you’re talking like . . . like, like you are the monarch of hell! My parents died tragically. Now you say you are tragedy—”

  “I wasn’t responsible for your parents’ demise. The Zandron did that. He was a psychopath. And yet, nothing can die without a call of some kind. Sometimes it is answered by me, sometimes others. Sometimes, even Angels answer the call for death.”

  She cried, “Are you saying my parents wanted to die? That they wanted to leave me?”

  “Not consciously, Jen. It was just their time to go. Life has its own balance, and what you call—death, is a part of that.”

  “You are the psychopath!”

  “I am not that. However, I am as I have been trying to tell you, life’s dark side—the energy of it, the chaos of it.”

  She rolled her eyes derisively, “Oh, back to that. You thrive on separation. I thrive on connection.”

  “No, I am separation. You are connection.”

  The sarcasm in her eyes rather pleased me. I preferred it to her whimpering. However, sarcasm would not block truth.

  “Isn’t there some sort of help for Tazmarks who have lost their minds? Don’t you have some sort of Tazmark psychologist somewhere, because johnny, you are a finite being even though you know magic and harness great powers of destruction. You cannot be all of separation. You can’t be a type of movement.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re not!”

  “I am.”

  She grabbed my upper arms, trying to shake me. “Stop playing games! Just be the johnny I know, okay? Just be who I know you to be . . . please.”

  “I am who I am.”

  “You’re being cruel!”

  “Yes.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek, my breath warm in her ear. “I am, but I’m not playing games, though I love to play them.”

  She stepped back again. Her anger turned to confusion. “I . . . I don’t understand.”

  “I want you to know about me before someone else tells you.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “It can’t be true.” She looked around as if to find an escape route. She started backing up.

  I matched her step for step. “What are you doing? Attempting to run from me? You know that’s not necessary—nor possible.”

  She stopped. “What exactly are you insinuating johnny? You told me before that you weren’t,” she swallowed hard and almost couldn’t inhale, “the prince
of all demons.”

  I combed my fingers through her baby fine hair. She was traumatized, but nothing compared to what was to come. I had to be the one to let her know the truth, the whole truth, before mom or dad had the chance.

  My arms fell around her. “Hold onto me. There’s another place I wish to take you.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “If you don’t hold on, you might slip, and fall where you don’t wish to fall.”

  “But—”

  “Here we go.”

  She grabbed me tight, so tight. Felt excellent.

  I flew us into the black vortex ribbed with light that gave passage to inner space, a place found only with the mind, even though one’s body can go there. Body density changes when moving into other worlds. Sometimes bodies within bodies venture off. However, currently, we both retained our physical bodies, growing less dense than we were in the Portal of Time.

  The sensation was rather like going in all directions at once, yet nowhere at all. We arrived on a prism floor of pulsating colors that emanated every tone in the spectrum of sound in a constant harmonious hum.

  Jen was trembling. Her eyes accused me with an intensity that would have made more sense had I led her to the electric chair.

  “Few will ever witness what I am about to show you.” I took her hand and led her to a crystal embankment that edged a spiral of whirling colors. “Look, ma chère” She always softened when I spoke French. I dropped her hand, sure she would not back away from this.

  She peered over the edge and gasped. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Keep looking,” I said, “watch what happens.”

  She said, “Now it looks like a crystalline pyramid that points down to earth.”

  I said, “This is where all points of time converge. It is like the pie of life with all time periods touching the center. Dragons call it Cyrus. And few Tazmarks even know how to get here, maybe none, but me. From here, one can view all time periods simultaneously, for here, there is no time.”

  She said, “I can’t see time periods. When I try it, looks blurry. Do you need Dragon eyes to see it?”

  “Focus on a particle of it. It will come clear. Then slowly shift your eyes, you will see times within times within times.”

  With my mind, I directed her focus to the times and places where I’d made my mark. I wanted her to truly know me.

  Her eyes widened viewing dazzling displays of live history. “johnny!” She gasped, “I don’t believe what I’m seeing. It looks so real!”

  “It is real, Jen. And there are many you’s right now living out your many lifetimes.”

  “I . . . I just can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it or not, there it is.”

  “You’re not down there though, right? I mean, you have had only this one long life.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Every moment of my existence is still down there. I am alive in all those time periods.”

  “How? How can this be?”

  “There is no time, Jen, not from here.”

  She stared at me oddly for a long moment. “You experienced all this,” she glanced down, “without forgetting, without being reborn to catch a new start along the way?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  She shook her head. “Geez johnny. It must be hard to have one long life. I . . . never realized—I never really understood what that must be like.”

  “I did have another life . . . once, in the Dragon World, but I had to depart. I don’t know why. I think I was . . . demoted.”

  “You mean, coming to earth was punishment?”

  I nodded.

  Her queer stare made me shiver, as if I’d seen it before, but I knew I hadn’t. She said, “You were a Dragon then, with no human features at all?”

  “None.”

  She gazed back down into Cyrus. “Why is there so much commotion going on down there? I mean how come I don’t see peaceful times?”

  “You are viewing the times and places that I have been.”

  “You experienced all that!”

  “I—”

  “You what?”

  I wanted to lie, but this wasn’t the time. If she could not accept me now, she never would. “I made it happen.”

  She snapped her face toward me, holding her breath in a pose of intense analysis.

  “Breathe Jen.”

  Horror shaped her face.

  “Look,” I pointed down.

  She shook her head frantically, all wide-eyed, still holding her breath.

  “Breathe,” I said.

  Slowly, air crept into her weighted lungs.

  I magically made her head turn and look into Cyrus. “Look at the history I made, or from here, look at the history I am making. The Hundred Years War. The English destroy the French fleet at the Battle of Sluys. England invades Normandy and wins the battle of Crecy.”

  “Stop!” Her hands flew over her ears. “I don’t want to hear about this.”

  I magically forced her hands down.

  “Stop controlling me!”

  “Stop resisting. Let’s see, where was I? Ah . . . the English capture Calais. The English capture King John of France. The English conquer Normandy. King Henry V of England dies. Yeah, okay, I got a little carried away with the English, but they were fun to control. A kick and a half, amusing as hell.”

  She tried to put her hands over her ears again, but I’d frozen her arms. She cried, “Stop, johnny stop—”

  “But I played with other provinces too. Constantinople falls to the Turks. The War of the Roses. Medici’s lose Florence. French Invaders take Milan, the Cold War, the French Revolution. And I played with pretty much every dictator from 12th Century onward.”

  “Dictators? No!” she cried, “No. You are not responsible for all that.”

  “I made it happen, Jen. I did make it happen. The world called for chaos. I obliged.”

  She gulped, backing away with quivering breath.

  I removed my magical hold on her arms. I wanted to see what she might do.

  Her face paled. “No, johnny, no.”

  “Yes, Jen, yes.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  I stared at her with truthful eyes, watching her tremble while clutching her stomach, breathing erratically in this silence that said so much. I guess it was a test. If she passed, she’d prove she loved me no matter what, and if she failed . . . well if she failed, what point was there in keeping her around? She was, after all, causing me enormous internal conflict, not to mention parental problems. I kept risking everything for her, bearing her maddening resistance to diabolical truths for endless days. The old me had no compunction to spare a life that agitated me—ever. Those that agitated were usually those that called. And always I answered. I wanted to answer this call, this call of Jen’s blaring so loud.

  Even as I toyed with thoughts of destroying her, the notion dissipated. She had changed me, the only one who ever had, and still did. She was my drug. She’d jump-started me from the grave of monotony into fresh experience. I was hooked. This Shen was in my blood.

  She broke the silence. “If you . . .” she gasped for air, pressing her hand over her lungs as if to relieve pain, “speak the truth,” she gasped again, “I must withdraw my allegiance to you.”

  She was in my blood, yes, but not above being punished. She failed the test, even with all these last months to prepare. I guess I knew she would. Hope was for Angels, not devils. This devil was maddened. I inhaled my urge to destroy. My patience was less than its short-tempered usual.

  “Withdraw?” I said, “What is there to withdraw? Your allegiance was never given. I told you many times that you could never love me. Not true love. Not unconditional love. Your love is full of conditions, which makes it worthless.”

  “Dear God, johnny,” she clutched her stomach harder, and gasped, “you ask too much!” She doubled over and fell to her knees, “I can’t do it. I could barely handle your nightly—”she gulped, “—kill
s, and now you want me to accept this?” She expelled several sharp breaths, staring at the misty ground. How could you expect me to—” she lifted her head to me, “condone these massive acts of destruction?”

  I said, “I have told you over and over the merit of my acts. Even when you get it, you don’t get it.”

  She swallowed hard, and rolled her eyes up at me. “You are Satan, aren’t you?” Her heartbeat quickened. Her blood scent grew strong.

  “Not the Satan your Bible knows. Same acts, different motives. And even if you give yourself to your so-called God, I can still get you. I get you when you call for suffering. And you do, Jen, you and a few million others. You all ask for it. When will you ever, ever understand—I reap the seeds you sow.”

  She panted erratically, tears streaming down her cheeks. Back to whimpering.

  “I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming.”

  “You’re not.”

  She crossed herself in the Catholic way, and lowered her head piously. “Oh dear Savior, oh Blessed Saints,” she sobbed, “forgive me. I’ve been deceived.”

  “You’ll never change,” I said, clenching my jaw.

  Her tear-streaked face tilted up at me. “And what about you, johnny, will you never change? How could you commit such atrocity?”

  I looked down at her with slit eyes. “Someone had to.”

  She shook her head. “Lies, more lies. Tazmarks lie . . . remember? You didn’t have to do these things. You wanted to. You enjoyed it.”

  “Oh, and you don’t enjoy healing?”

  “That’s different!”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not. We must be true to our natures. If a cat can enjoy pouncing on a mouse, why can’t I?”

  “johnny, you pounce on people.”

  I said, “So, who says a person is more worthy than a mouse? People? Ask the mouse, you’d get a different answer.” I smiled faintly, an attempt at levity.

  Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “You kill mice too.” Her mouth tightened. Her lips trembled. Ah, anger returning. My preference, always. Her hand crept up over the talisman. She was going to yank it off. Last time she did that, a Tazmark sucked her essence, shriveling her body until it nearly disintegrated with the breeze.