An Angel's Touch Read online

  She grinned sarcastically. “You aren’t having your . . . usual?”

  “Later,” I said.

  “Aren’t you . . . tired? I mean, you’ve missed your traditional afternoon nap.”

  “I’m not tired,” I said, though I was. Changing continents always threw me off. Yes, even Taz’s get jet lag, even when we are the jets.

  She was goading me, punishment for bleeping her disclosure from Randa’s memory. I still had her under a spell to remain with me, but that didn’t rule out sparring.

  I said, “You’d best decide want you want to order,” hoping to shut her up.

  She looked down at her menu.

  A minute later a cocktail waiter in a gold uniform came to our table. Jen stared at him, then shook her head as if to dispel a mirage. “André?”

  “Roberto,” said the waiter.

  Randa said, “Did you think you knew him?”

  “I thought so.” Jen looked at me. “Doesn’t he look exactly like André?”

  “No,” I said, “not even slightly.” And he didn’t. André was fine featured and lanky, not broad-chested and muscular like this guy.

  Roberto drew out his bright white pad and glittering gold pen, “Cocktails?”

  “Scotch,” I said, “double, straight up.”

  Randa chimed, “Ditto for me.”

  “Hot tea,” Jen said, studying Roberto’s face.

  “Very well,” Roberto said, and walked away with a prim and proper gate.

  Jen whispered to me, “He does look like André. Don’t you remember what André looks like?”

  “All to well,” I said dryly.

  “Poor André.” Jen sighed, “I left him without saying a word.”

  “Whose André?” asked Randa.

  Jen said, “Oh, he was a man I met when we were in Paris. You heard about the nuclear explosion in Russia, right?”

  “Yes,” Randa said, “such a tragedy.”

  Jen continued, “Well, André and I were active in motivating help for the victims.”

  “You have changed much with johnny in your life,” Randa said. “The Jenséa I knew was too shy to do anything about anything.”

  “Ah,” Jen jolted.

  “What?” Randa said.

  “The babies are kicking me.”

  Randa reached over and placed her hand on Jen’s abdomen. “Whoa, you’ve got a pair of wee devils in there.”

  “I know,” Jen said. Then she repeated more sadly, “I know.”

  The waiter returned with our drinks. Randa opened her white sequined purse and withdrew a pack of cigarettes, offering me one. I took it. She withdrew her gold lighter and snapped it, but it was out of butane.

  Jen looked at me mischievously. “Why don’t you . . . light it for her?”

  She was still trying to punish me. Trying.

  “Do you have a lighter, johnny?” asked Randa.

  “johnny doesn’t need a lighter to light—”

  “Jen has matches,” johnny interrupted.

  “No, I don’t,” she said.

  “They are in your purse. I saw them there earlier.”

  She frowned and opened her purse on her lap. “There’s no—”

  I reached in her purse and pulled out the matches I’d manifested the moment my hand was hidden.

  Jen’s jaw dropped with exasperation, and transformed to a tight little pout as I reached past her and lit Randa’s cigarette, and then mine.

  While Randa and I enjoyed our smoke and drink, the hot tea steam from Jen’s black cup wafted over her sulking face.

  Finally, she huffed, “You know this secondhand smoke is not good for my babies.”

  “It won’t hurt them,” johnny said.

  She sneered, waving her hand in front of her smoky face. “Well, it’s hurting me.”

  Randa gasped a bit, “Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” She put out her cigarette. Being privy of Jen’s healing powers, I did not.

  The dinner waiter in a dark red tuxedo appeared. He looked at Randa. “May I take your order, miss?”

  Jen stared at him as she had the cocktail waiter.

  “Rigatoni,” ordered Randa, “Italian dressing on the salad.”

  The waiter turned his attention to Jen, “And you, miss?”

  “André?”

  “No,” he said, “Franco.”

  She shook her head.

  “Jen,” I whispered in her ear, “What would André being doing in New York City waiting tables? Besides, a minute ago you thought the cocktail waiter was André. I think he is just on your mind.”

  She glared at me, and then stared down at her menu. Petulance threaded her voice. “I’ll have vegetable soup . . . a roll, no butter . . . fruit salad, a dinner salad with Italian dressing, orange ice cream, orange mousse, key lime pie, lots of crackers, and do you have any of those green olives?”

  “I thought you weren’t hungry,” Randa said playfully.

  Jen blushed. “I guess I am.”

  The waiter asked, “How many olives do you desire, miss?”

  With her nose in the air, she answered, “A bowl full please.”

  He raised a brow. “A bowl full?”

  “Please.” Jen nodded.

  Randa said to the waiter, “She’s pregnant, cravings . . . you know.”

  The waiter smirked, “Anything else.”

  “No, that’s all,” Jen said.

  The waiter looked at me. “And you, sir?”

  “T-bone steak, no salad, no vegetable, no bread.”

  “Rice or potato,” asked the waiter?

  “Just meat.” My stomach growled. Cow meat was sorry replacement for a human pumper, but, oh well. “Make it rare . . . bloody rare.”

  The waiter nodded, turned, and walked away mumbling, “A bowl of olives and bloody meat. Fucking fruitcakes.”

  I made him trip with my mind magic. He fell on his face, attracting attention. He scrambled clumsily to his feet, beet-red embarrassed. I smiled slightly.

  Jen glared at me again, shaking her head, mouthing You’re pathetic. Then she seared a look into me that damn near singed my eyeballs. She was becoming downright ornery, at long last. Not a thing Shens were generally good at.

  I turned my attention back to Randa.

  Randa rattled on about her career as an art dealer, and about how all of Jen’s horror paintings sold, and that fifty thousand dollars had been direct deposited into her checking account.

  “Have you painted anything lately?” asked Randa.

  “No, not really.”

  “Nothing else stored away that I haven’t seen?”

  Jen looked up at me. She was thinking of the painting she’d done of me in my apartment.

  “Pandora’s box,” I whispered to her.

  She knew what I meant.

  “Ah, no,” she said to Randa. “I’ve been too sick.” She pointed to her stomach. “You know.”

  The waiter arrived with our food, all the derision gone from his face. He had to make two trips to bring Jen’s food. I ate my meat, which was to me, the equivalent of humans eating dog food, but my face never revealed my displeasure. Jen picked at her food, seeming to have lost her appetite. Randa ate heartily while discussing the field of art.

  An attractive blonde-haired woman in a bright red spandex dress swept across the room and touched Randa on the shoulder. “I didn’t know you were going to dine here tonight!” She kissed Randa on the cheek. “May I join you?” Her cheekbones were so high, much of her face looked hollowed.

  “Well,” Randa said tightly, “are you here . . . alone?”

  “Jo Jo canceled on me, so yes.”

  Randa cleared her throat, and though she tried to stop it, her face turned red. “Candy, may I present my friends, Jenséa Renlé and johnny.”

  Candy smiled at me. “Does johnny have a last name?”

  Randa gave me a weird look, and said, “I don’t know johnny, do you have a last name?”

  “No,” I said.

  R
anda and Candy giggled like teen-age girls. They were sometime lovers, if I was reading their minds correctly.

  Randa looked at Jen, almost apologetically. “Do you mind if Candy joins us, Jenséa?”

  Jen shook her head, but I could tell she minded—a lot.

  Candy also ordered Rigatoni and scotch, and she was served shortly after. Randa and Candy flirted with their eyes, as occasional coy expressions passed between them. These little displays rendered pretty amusing, stunned expressions on Jen’s face. Her straight-laced little life had exploded at the seams. Kind of like a slow motion h-bomb. Prettier than hell.

  Suddenly, Jen ate ravenously, not so much because she was hungry, but more to avert conversing with Randa and her friend. She had been totally unaware that her dear Randa ever had such inclinations.

  Randa glanced at her periodically with concerned eyes. The view was always the same: Jen’s face in hard contemplation.

  And every time the waiter appeared, Jen commented over and over again that he looked like André. It was pretty apparent Diego was working on her now, but he wasn’t in her, because I was in her, and I would let no one trespass.

  After she’d finished every bite, she dabbed her napkin to her lips and sighed. Then she leaned into my ear and whispered emphatically, “Let’s go back to France tonight. I must find André. I must. I feel he’s in terrible danger.”

  I flooded her mind with sleepiness so that I’d not have to respond to her statement. I needed to get out into the night, and, as they say, ‘do my thing.’

  Jen leaned her head on my shoulder. “I’m tired.”

  “She’s tired,” I said to Randa. “We’ll be off.”

  I rose and helped Jen up.

  “Come stay at my place,” Randa offered.

  “No,” I said, “not this visit. Besides, you look a bit preoccupied.”

  I placed three one hundred dollar bills on the table, which I’d manifested from the wallet of a man dining alone across the room.

  Randa excused herself from her friend, and stood up. “No, my treat, johnny.”

  “No, mine,” I said. “You gave me Jen. I owe you.”

  “Well, thank you.” She glanced at Jen who had taken her place next to me.

  “Jen?”

  “Hmm?” Jen said, acting like nothing was wrong.

  “Excuse us for a moment, johnny.” Randa walked to Jen and pulled her arm back a bit, drawing her closer to the sparkling fountain. “Is everything all right?”

  Jen looked down, nodding in a hot blush. Moralistic, goody goody, pedantic Jen. Every little thing stunned her. I suppose it was truly amazing that she accepted anything of me at all.

  Randa rested her hands on Jen’s shoulders. Their secret conversation was loud to me. “I love you, Jenséa.”

  “It’s okay, Randa.”

  Randa talked and Jen nodded as her discomfort changed to love. After a minute they hugged warmly. Jen had accepted Randa. I sighed. Why not me?

  Jen waddled over to me while saying to Randa, “I’ll get your clothes back to you.”

  “No hurry,” Randa said.

  We said our goodbyes and Jen clung to my arm sleepily, her head resting on my shoulder. I slid my arm securely around her back and headed to the coat-check counter.

  I helped her slip inside the warm coat and walked us outside down the street into a corner alley. Powdery snow began to fall on our heads. I was pondering where to bed her down for the night. I decided on my apartment in the projects.

  I lifted her in my arms and flew us through a blink of light or two, and landed in my abode. Home, evil home. Jen had fallen asleep in my arms. Her silken hair was pinned against my bicep, her long burgundy gown arcing down to my knee. I carried her past my living room decorated with horror paintings and medieval weapons, a black armchair with an end table, and three black cushions on the floor arranged like a bed. We passed the portrait she’d done of me, still on the easel where she left it a year and half ago. Almost as an after sight, I glimpsed Diego’s face in it. He was smiling sinfully, watching our every move.

  I carried Jen into the black-walled bedroom and lowered her onto the ebony velvet comforter on my king-sized bed. I warmed the room magically, and changed her apparel to a black silk nightgown, and me into black jeans, tee-shirt, and casual boots.

  Though I was in a rush to hunt, I took time to cast every spell I knew to protect her in my absence. I further suggested to her unconscious that she’d dream of flowers and sunshine and sweet things as such. And that she would taste peppermint ice cream, and hear babbling brooks and birds in song. And that she’d not awaken until the sun rose when I returned.

  I blanketed her with invisibility. She was protected now, but who would protect me? That thought resonated in my head. What a quirky notion for the Prince of Darkness. It was foreign and uncomfortable, but kinda cool. I liked the feeling, but not enough to lose my battle with Diego. Thinking of Diego and feeling unnerved, I impulsively appealed to the Ancients for the power of Black Dragon Kings. Oh, not Quen-tan and his army, but to the soul of the Chaos Dragon World. Although thoughts create reality, sometimes I abandoned conscious thought and want, and instead merged with pure energy for the hell of it, just to see what might occur. The best magic can happen that way.

  An invisible fire roared over me, crackling in my ears, heating my body to a jarring temperature. My eyes flew open. The heat was burning me up from the inside out. I dropped to my knees, but I did not relinquish my call to the Ancients. “Draco vis, ultimus vis, equidem rapere.” The roar intensified. My insides felt like they were melting. I was changing. Into what, I didn’t know, but I did not cease the call, for I’d somehow stumbled upon a key to the mystery of me. A door was opening, and I intended to go through it.

  My taut muscles vibrated. My pumper raced at a rate that would have killed a human. I felt like I was falling. I was. I guess I wasn’t going anywhere but to the floor. I felt fluid and limp as I drifted into dreams of volcanic fire, not quite asleep, but unable to awaken.

  I was transforming. The hunt was off. What was on? I didn’t have a clue.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jen roused with the sun. I didn’t. I was in some cocoon-like state, conscious but semi-paralyzed and unable to open my eyes.

  I heard her blankets ruffle.

  She stepped out of bed. “johnny! What’s wrong!” She fell to her knees. Her hands gripped my shoulders. “johnny! You have . . . giant claws sprouting from your fingers.”

  I couldn’t open my eyes. “Describe them?” I mumbled.

  “They are not like your,” she gulped, “Tazmark claws. These look like curled black glass.”

  Volcanic glass, I thought. My feet hurt. I tried to use magic to remove my boots. No luck. “Remove my boots.”

  She slid off one boot, then the other. She removed my socks slowly, “Oh God, johnny, what’s happening to you? Those same giant claws are . . . sprouting from your toes.” She gulped. “The rest of you appears human though. Is this your father’s doing?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what?”

  “I summoned the power to fight him, and this happened.”

  She gasped. “Are you turning into a full-fledged Dragon?”

  My blood coursed. My skin itched. Hell, maybe I was.

  Something else was starting to occur. I had to talk fast. “Don’t remove the talisman, Jen, no matter what happens. Stay here. If you must go, fly. Don’t walk the neighborhoods.”

  Her head fell to my shin. She clutched my leg and whimpered. “Please don’t turn into a Dragon johnny, not like the ones we saw at Cyrus.”

  “Jen,” I said, lightheaded. “It’s not like . . . I can stop it. I don’t know what’s happening either, but somehow, I know I will have what I need when it’s over.”

  She sat up suddenly. “You’re burning hot! You have a fever.”

  “Tazmarks don’t get fevers.”

  She scooted up to my face and placed her palm over my fore
head. “But you have a fever—you do!”

  “Jen,” I rasped, but stopped short. I felt myself moving into the fourth realm of roots and beginnings, then the fifth realm of fairy tale stuff, and then the sixth realm of nightmares, and then . . . I don’t know what.

  I heard Jen screaming, “johnny! Where are you?”

  I felt myself becoming pencil thin and then ocean wide, sweltering hot, icy cold, then luke warm. A vacuum, like the one that pulled me into outer space when I destroyed Chelt, drew me in. I seemed protected without having to make myself blend into the particles I traversed. This journey was longer than the one to Chelt. Just when I wondered if the journey had a finish, everything stopped.

  I appeared under an orange sky with sweeping yellow clouds in a land of fire. I was sitting on haunches in a sea of amber flames that carpeted the surface of the land. This fire did not burn me. Orange-yellow flames licked my talons. I examined my right talon: four rough skinned appendages in the front and a thumb like appendage on my wrist. My colossal claws were thick, curled, and needle tipped. I liked them.

  I was comfortable . . . and different. Not small like a Tazmark. If I had to guess, I was probably about five yards high. My tail curled around my left side. It was bluish black and scaly with a cluster of spikes on the tip, which would be excellent for thrashing. The scales had a pearly sheen that sometimes hinted violet tones. Massive wings rested on the hump of my large body. I was a beautiful full-blown Dragon. And . . . I was not on earth. I padded my feet on the fire, just to test them.

  A gold Dragon blazed a trail in the distant orange sky coming toward me. Slow motion webbed wings grew larger as the body neared. Almost to me, its underbelly was pale yellow, and looked ribbed. I looked down at my chest. It was ribbed too, pale blue.

  Behind the gold Dragon, a smaller, golden-orange Dragon became noticeable. Suddenly, they shot down my way like B 52 bombers and landed before me on the flaming carpet. Sparks flew up around their talons. The gold Dragon stood before me, about my size, wings spread. A male, I guess, given a certain pouch between his legs that appeared to harbor an appendage. I looked down. I had one too. Hmm, I wonder what I might do with that?