An Angel's Touch Page 18

  “No johnny.”

  “Yes Jen.” I said with whirling eyes. She wasn’t acquiescing so easily with this one.

  She said, “I can’t. I can’t be with you.”

  I intensified my whirling eyes.

  “You can and you will.”

  I felt her body soften.

  “You desire me so intensely, you cannot leave.”

  Her longing for me flitted across her face.

  I was using magic to make her want me again. I didn’t care that it wouldn’t be an authentic want, not at the moment anyway. I’d almost lost her. I was just glad to have her back.

  I led her in this strange walk, me stepping backward, her forward, joined by held hands in the Oasis of Dimensions, which is a trip and a half if you walk instead of fly. The compressed energy made us travel in slow motion; each step, each breath, was like moving in thick liquid. The backdrop of silver haze broke around the shape of her body, lined with bluish light.

  She resembled a curvy electrical tube. Her sheer white gown mashed against her legs as if she were walking through water. The neckline of her gown had dropped low on her shoulders, exposing her long neck, and most of her breasts. Her skin was like milk that I wanted to drink. Blond hair swished about her face, tendrils floating across her oceanic eyes and the bridge of her small nose. Her lips were as a salmon sunset that could pull me into forever. And I wanted to go. Who was she?

  I mean, W h o w a s s h e?

  I saw her then, the way she had been long ago: a goddess of worlds that knew only love. How had she drifted so far away from the taproot of her quintessence, so far away, that she believed herself a mere leaf, a thousand miles high at the top of the tree? She was more, much more than even I had understood. And yet, I had been returning her to wholeness since the day I’d met her.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her to view the magical sights of the Oasis because I felt microscopic in her presence. Physical sensations permeated my skin. I usually needed something like three bottles of scotch for that to occur. I could even feel the smoothness of her hand as I held it, me with the insensate fingers. I wanted to cry.

  The edges of my open trench coat waved in front of me as I pulled her onward, my long, black hair blowing over my face. I peered through the ropes of it, captivated, wanting her to take me, consume me, and pull me through to the other side of eternity. I wasn’t paying attention to where we were going. We’d crossed the Oasis and I took a step too far. The surface beneath us gave way. I seized Jen, holding her hard against me as we fell into a dark void. Our hair blew straight up, entangling by the sheer speed of our descent into this uncharted chasm. Jen’s consciousness slipped away.

  I used my intangible wings to steady us and stop the descent. Not easy. Without the aid of my iron will demanding our bodies to stop falling, my wings would have been ripped off. Imagine that, the Prince of Darkness, unable to fly.

  I flew us to India to a Buddhist Community. A little Buddhism might be good for her. She’d like it there in a natural world setting. France no longer camouflaged us. Everyone who counted knew where we were. I flew us into a valley in the mountains. Around this valley, I created a Black Light Shield thickened with all the magic I could muster. I needed time to make her mine again; time to do with her what I chose without interference; time to enjoy her without the walls of urgency crushing us. Quen-tans laughter echoed in my brain. My needs amused him. Fuck him. I still needed what I needed. Time.

  Chapter Eleven

  We landed in the third realm inside a simple stone cottage, with a small, wood-framed bed, round wood table and two wood chairs. The place was mossy smelling, new life and all that. I preferred the smell of ruinous fire. I manifested a dazzling blaze in the tan stone hearth. Better. I manifested Jen’s cloth floral travel bag from Le Grande Maison to the bedside.

  Jen hung limp in my arms, unconscious, covered in goose bumps. I created a pocket of warmth around her. Clear goo, from my near death, spotted her gown. I magically exchanged that gown for a black silk nightgown, low on the shoulders, with long open sleeves—kind of gothic looking. I liked it. Her milky skin glowed. Her daisy petal features held such repose.

  I wanted to lick her face, but I’d probably burn my tongue off touching the glowing aftermath of her light spree. Holding her had been uncomfortable enough. I conceded though that she deserved a sparkle of joy from the damaging day she’d survived: my teeth crunching a mouse, kidnapped by a Halkodama, learning she was pregnant, raped eight times in a past life, and perhaps the worst—learning the truth about me. Maybe I had been a bit unyielding, given the ordeals of her day—given that.

  I walked her over to the double bed, and laid her on the yellow and black batik bedspread, manifesting a fluffy white cased pillow to cushion her head. The wood frame was simple, the cottage too, a real change from Le Grande Maison.

  Speaking of changing, my clothes needed it. I dressed magically in fresh black jeans and a black, button-down, silk shirt. I even tucked it in for her. It would not do to have her awaken and question me more thoroughly about the knives in my trench coat.

  There was no indoor plumbing, but there was a community bathhouse situated centrally to seven other cottages. She would enjoy the walk outside to get to it. There was a stream, and the rolling hills surrounding us would remind her of Zeke’s meadow in Montana, her most favorite place in the world—a place I could not take her now. Our last battle occurred there. It would merely remind her of the battle to come. Here was best. For now anyway.

  Even so, sheltering her from the upcoming battle in Chile would be a formidable task. The Tazmarks sought her participation, and their explanation didn’t wash. I felt odd being in the dark about so much. Not that I didn’t relish the challenge of as they say, ‘having it all,’ but it had hit me like a cannonball in the back. Would I recover in time to make a worthy opponent for the greatest battle of my life?

  I traced my finger across Jen’s lips back and forth, back and forth, and then down her chin to the hollow in her neck. I splayed my fingers over her throat, gripping lightly. My inability to kill her had sent me down a strange path.

  Her glow was gone, at last. I lowered my lips to hers and licked the soft mounds. My lips and tongue are more sensorial than my fingers; hence, I roam her body with them.

  With my lips on hers, her eyes opened, softening at the sight of mine, as if she’d forgotten all the bad parts of our day. Of course, she usually chose to remember the best of everything, and everyone. Optimism. Shens were good at that.

  “What happened?” she mumbled in my mouth.

  I stepped back, preparing to be evasive.

  She sat up, grabbed her head, and fell back down. “I’m dizzy.” She moaned lightly, “My head feels full of air.”

  “Always,” I said.

  She glowered at me. “Are you insinuating I’m a dingbat?”

  I smiled. She was comedy to me. That is, when she wasn’t a pain in the ass. “That, and you are incredibly gullible,” I said. “I don’t mind.” And I didn’t—much. It made her easy to influence. Keeping that influence was the hard part.

  “I’m not a dingbat, and I’m not—”

  “Gullible?”

  “Well,” she squinted one eye, still clutching her head to regain her equilibrium. “Are you trying to distract me from talking about what happened?”

  “Nothing like the present.” I didn’t want her backing up all the way, to what we needed to let drop for a while. Maybe comedy would do the trick. “You look like a bat ray holding your head like that, elbows out, all trapezoidal.”

  “Oh, so I’m a dingbat and bat ray; well, you know what kind of bat you are!”

  “Com bat.”

  “Very funny, but there is a worse bat than that.”

  She was going to steer this conversation toward my vampire activities, not a good place to go. “Why don’t you rest your arms at your side?”

  “I can’t let go of my head. It’s like, if I do, bad things will come to
mind.”

  “By all means,” I said, “keep your hands there.”

  “Well, I want to know something about what happened.”

  “You said you don’t want bad things to come to mind.”

  “Why must you be so evasive?”

  “You make it necessary.”

  “I don’t want to get into everything, but I am curious about one thing.”

  “You want to know what we fell into.”

  “Yes.”

  “Emptiness.”

  “Emptiness?”

  “Between realms there is non-space.”

  “Well, how did we get out of it?”

  “I flew us across it, the way we were going before we fell.”

  “Before we fell.” Her face furrowed in contemplation. She sat up slowly, crossing her legs under her gown, staring at me with her hands on her thighs. “Before we fell, what was that place we were in?”

  With one foot on the floor, I sat next to her on the bed, my knee touching hers. “We were crossing the Oasis of Dimensions where all realms converge.”

  She shook her head. “Huh?”

  A serious glint grabbed my eye. “You once knew such things, I’m certain.”

  “Why are you certain?”

  I took my finger to the low neckline of her gown, skating my fingertips over the edge of skin and silk. I suddenly didn’t want this conversation. I had felt small when I’d seen her like a goddess.

  She captured my roaming hand and held it against her heart. “Why johnny, why are you certain?”

  “I saw it in you, when we crossed the Oasis.”

  “I saw you differently too.”

  I did want this conversation. I pulled my other leg on the bed, sitting cross-legged, facing her. I took her hands in mine. “How did you see me?”

  “You were a god.” She sighed quick and hard, as if her breath had been momentarily stolen. “You ruled worlds, johnny. Dragon Worlds.”

  My heart pounded. I’d been waiting for this information my whole, long life. “Tell me more.”

  “You—” she gulped.

  I squeezed her hands lightly. “Go on.”

  Her eyes glossed. She stared at our hands. “You were immense, and treacherous. And—” she gasped, “I loved you . . . in a very personal way.” Her hands started shaking. “But something happened, something major, something awful.” She slipped her hands from mine and covered her eyes.

  I pulled her hands down from her face. “What, Jen, what?”

  She said, “We fought. I don’t know what became of us.”

  Her words dazed me. It was no accident that she was the Shen I chose to protect and care for.

  She pulled her hands from mine and hugged her stomach. “I don’t know what to think about us anymore. I have no sense of reality. Not that I ever did when it comes to you, but this is less tangible. I’m losing my mind, I guess, because none of this can be true. You can’t be—” she gulped. “And I can’t be— and we can’t—”

  “Sh,” I said, stroking her arm.

  She stilled, too still. I felt her mind block my touch, submerge the truth, and search for diversion.

  She brushed her hands over the batik cover. “Where are we?”

  She was done on the subject, so I got off the bed and walked about the cottage to keep my cool. “India.”

  “India? What happened to France?”

  Staring at a picture of the High Lama Khandro on the wall, I said, “We need to hideout for a while. I’ve shielded the valley in black light. It will camouflage us for a short time, maybe a long time.”

  “Are you saying that your parents are still after us?”

  I didn’t answer. I walked over to the fireplace and stared at the pile of flames consuming pinewood, crackling and perfuming the room. Smoke, lovely smoke. I leaned down to get it in my hair.

  “Oh please tell me those Dragons aren’t searching for us!”

  “Not the Dragons,” I said, turning to her, “though they are up to something.”

  She held her head in her hands once more and fell back on the pillow. “I don’t feel so well.”

  I walked over to her, staring down at her closed eyes, hands clasping head in her usual state of denial. But even if she were open for truth, I didn’t know what the truth was. Aruka was probably still immobilized in the web I’d created, but for all I knew Diego had freed her. I was truly baffled about their intentions.

  Jen rolled on her side with her back to me, holding her stomach. Well, she’d been alarmed enough for one day. A change of subject was due.

  I climbed over her body and laid on my side facing her, my head sharing her pillow. Her body stiffened. I stroked the hair off her face and curled it behind her ear. Affection usually relaxed her. “We can make this work.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  I loved her, but she was obstinate. I let loose a long sigh that bespoke my endless frustration with her lack of confidence.

  “I’m sorry, johnny. I know you are tired of my bleak attitude when it comes to war.”

  “Yes, I am. Why am I always the one with hope? You are the Angel.”

  “But I’m not a good Angel.”

  I snaked my arm around her and scooted her closer so that her face was in my neck. “You’re getting better.”

  She tried to rise to look me eye to eye, but I wasn’t going to allow those oceanic orbs to melt me any more than they already had. Legend has it not to look into vampire eyes, but Angel eyes are just as hypnotic. Of course, I never told her that. I held her tighter so that she had to talk into my neck.

  She said, “But you won’t let me heal those who call.”

  “I have. Remember, at the Rape Center last year?”

  “But not Russia. Why won’t you let me help heal Russia?”

  “Because you must let some things be, or you’ll overdo it like you did at Cyrus.”

  “Yes, but everything and I mean everything I did was un—” she tried again to get us face to face, to deliver her rebuttal, but I held her still, “—undone.”

  I spoke over the top of her head. “I know you have a need to lighten the earth without your work being undone. Earth can use what you have to offer—to an extent.” She tried again to face me, her rebuttal building, but I wouldn’t let her eyes leave my neck. I continued, “If I facilitate your need, I facilitate mine. The more earth is pacified, the more it needs chaos. The more you fulfill your destiny; I am again drawn into mine. So you see, I will allow you to do much healing.”

  “If that’s true, is it—” she pushed against my arms, “I prefer to look at you when I speak.”

  I held her immobile. “Is it what?”

  “Is it possible that we can coexist with opposite momentums?”

  “We must try.”

  “Then return me to France. Let me get André and proceed with my Russia project. Or take me back to Cyrus and let me heal Russia from there. Just Russia. I promise I won’t overdo it. Pick some other thing for me to let be. Not this. If you mean what you say, prove it to me. Take me to Cyrus or take me to France, just let me heal Russia. Give me Russia, johnny. I need it!”

  So did fucking I. Her buzzing bee litany was not without a stinger. “Forget Cyrus. Forget Russia,” I said, and I was stern.

  She pushed against my arm. “Let me go!”

  I did—too mad to be near her. I rolled on my back and clasped my hands behind my head, repressing rage. My rage seemed to act on its own these days, no longer just an answer to a call. Another thing I wouldn’t tell her. She scooted off the bed, and stood in a motherly pose, hands on hips, ready to deliver another one of her irritating speeches.

  I was so mad I went into Pericludies. Better that than biting her again.

  Her jaw dropped to see me disappear before her eyes. She had never seen me do that before.

  “johnny?” she said meekly, looking around the room for me. “Are you still here?”

  She looked so damned innocent, I reappeared sitting on the bedsi
de, feet on floor, arms crossed, eyes half-mast in warning.

  Feeling my presence, she looked at me and jumped. She hugged her stomach nervously. “You’re mad at me, I understand, but I just cannot let that tragedy go without helping in some way.”

  “You must,” I said.

  “Please let me heal Russia from Cyrus.”

  “No.”

  The ends of her blonde hair teased her shoulders. And the firelight blazing and crackling behind her made her appear as a glowing ember. “I can think of better things to do.” I left the bed and came toward her, sloe-eyed and ready for communion.

  Seeing the look in my eye, she stepped back passively. “I don’t think so; we aren’t done talking.”

  “I am.” I grabbed her hips and pressed my maleness against her.

  “johnny,” she said on a fleeting breath, “I want to resolve—”

  I kissed her neck and swirled my tongue over her jugular. I got a whiff of her vital fluid. I wanted to taste it again, but I didn’t think she’d permit me to drink. I wished she’d move that way with me and dare a minor adventure on the dark side.

  Her voice quivered, “I want to resol—”

  I kissed and licked my way down her shoulder, unsheathing her from the gown as I went.

  “I want to—”

  Down on my knees, I edged the gown to her waist and nuzzled my face between her breasts, over the dragon talisman.

  “I . . . I—”

  “You . . . you . . . ” I said, half-mocking. My tongue found her nipple, and then my lips. I looked forward to the day this breast would yield milk. Since she forbade me to draw crimson fluid from her, perhaps the cream of life would suffice.

  She melted into me, merging. Shens are good at that. And I was glad, for that made this, delicious. Her gown slipped over her hips to the floor, revealing her naked body. I blew my hot breath of lust into each breast, her abdomen, and in the crevice of each hip. On my knees, I leisurely trailed my heated exhalations around to the small of her back while gliding my hands firmly over her body, lighting her to sate my need. I blew and kissed and licked my way up her back, around her ribcage and down her pelvis to her inner thigh.