An Angel's Touch Page 7

  Okay, so my father was more powerful than I. Damn, I was disheartened. Even so, I had to help Jen. Her Angels said she needed me. Hell, I needed her. I tried to mind link with her. I couldn’t see her, feel her, nothing. It used to be simple, even from afar. I hoped this lapse of ability was temporary. Guess I’d just have to go and see how she was doing.

  I flew unsteadily in the sixth realm through blinks of light to Le Grande Mansion. I landed roughly, and almost fell to the gold carpet. I regained my balance and explored the suite, dissolving all spells I had put on it. Jen was gone. How did she escape?

  My mind flashed, then again, and again, each time successively brighter. I had a faint vision of Jen, then it became clear. My extra sensory perception had returned. I was relieved. I saw Jen at a fountain on Boulevard Saint-Michel, standing on a portable stage in a pretty, sky blue dress. She was speaking to a crowd of people in fluent French. I knew she was familiar with the language, but not that familiar. She was lecturing about the bomb disaster in Russia and sharing how the French could help. A tall, lanky, handsome man with short, red hair stood next to her on the stage in a navy blue tailored shirt, tucked into finely pressed tan pants. She looked too damn at ease standing next to him. And she never stood at ease with men. Fuck this.

  I flew to Boulevard Saint-Michel, landing far back from Jen. I needed distance to escape the rays of Divine Light engulfing the area. I watched Jen from Pericludies, a state of invisibility wherein my being blends with the ions of the air.

  She stood on the three-foot stage in front of an ornate building featuring a massive fountain of the Archangel Michel slaughtering a dragon. Jen slaughtering me. That is what this felt like. Of all places—of all things . . .

  Well, there was bitter fighting here in 1944 between the Resistance and the Germans. My doing. I was a hell raiser. I was hell. I didn’t need Jen. Fuck her. Even as I thought this, hypocrisy took charge. I cocked my invisible head, my eyes transfixed upon her, drinking in every nuance: her slender fingered hand pressed to her heart, the tilt of her head, downy yellow strands lifting gently with breezes blowing lightly about her chest, catching sunlight as mild gusts kicked tresses about the soft hollow of her neck. The lilt of her sincere voice rising on the wind, graced—everything.

  Her long-sleeved dress, as blue as the sky, hugged her chest, talisman tucked within. The skirt rippled in the breeze around her knees, kissing skin playfully, then billowing lightly. Her face had come alive, not posed in fear or unwanted desire, as when in my presence.

  How I longed to graze my tongue along her creamy face and feel my teeth against her cheekbones with the gentility and worship she deserved. What was wrong with me? What was wrong! I worship no one—only myself. My passions courted blood and forced submission. Victory was in the kill. But not with her, not her. She was my poetry, my song, my longing, birthing me into worlds unknown—my savior, my doom.

  Her empathetic eyes held the crowd. Her impassioned words speared them with arrows of otherworldly love, cracking dense minds and cool hearts. Her power was great, though she never noticed. She wasn’t little now. In fact, she seemed to enjoy being large. Her light intensified and stretched further. I stepped back. Though others were blind to her light, they could feel it in ways that would burn me.

  Quite suddenly, their merciful postures, and sad sack faces infuriated me. I wanted to heave my fire upon them all, and watch their skin bubble cinder black, then to ash, then to dust. But then, to kill without the call was a grave breech in Tazmarkian Law. However, I had reputation for law breaking. Even so, Jen needed to heal people as much as I needed to destroy them. So law or not, I would abstain. Jen’s Angels Three said she needed me. She appeared elated—sans me. Wading through my rage toward the truth might prove impossible.

  She finished speaking. People clapped heartily and an upturn of voices ensued. Jen stepped down from the stage, her Divine Light condensing around her. The red-haired man followed. The compassion charged crowd slowly dispersed, except for the red-haired man who stood next to her, and a handful of people who had gathered around posing them both questions. I watched and waited, slowly moving closer in my invisible state. Though I’d decided to let her do her thing, I also wanted to know what thing she was doing.

  When I arrived about six yards in front of her, she was talking to the red-haired man. He had a “Save the World” aura. Another Goody Two Shoes—almost as good as Jen. I cast my mind into his essence. Saccharine. Honey pot heart. Gardenia stench. Shen!

  Shens attract Shens.

  His narrow hand rubbed her arm.

  She smiled at him, not lightly to be polite, nor fondly as one would a neighbor. Her smile was flirty and needful, like a lure to catch her prey. She hunts too. She just won’t admit it. I’ll make her.

  I became visible walking toward her. “Jen!”

  Her head snapped my direction. The red-haired man had a peculiar look on his face. Jen’s Divine Light faded completely, replaced with something more human. She ran over to me, blue pumps smacking concrete. Her hands landed against my chest, stopping me in my tracks as if to keep me from the red-haired, Angel Boy. She was staring hard at my face. “johnny, what happened to you?”

  What was she talking about? Had I visibly changed? She rose on her toes, pressing her mouth to my ear. “I’ll heal you, darling.”

  “I’m fine,” I grumbled.

  “You’re not fine. You have bloody gashes on your face; your shirt is shredded; your skin is red and—.” she paused, “—you are wearing leather, and it’s been . . . burned. Why are you wearing leather, johnny?”

  I was not going to tell her it was for luring women into my death trap, so I disregarded her question. I touched my face and felt liquid pockets. I was a mess.

  “Oh what happened?” she cried in a broken whisper.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “johnny, please!”

  “Back off,” I said gruffly, pushing her away, though I wanted her close.

  She stepped back standing limp, an abused look hanging on her face. Wind blew hair strands across her chin and trembling lips. But still—she was the cold one.

  I shook my head. “You didn’t give a fuck that I’ve been absent four days. In fact, my absence has elated you.” I almost slapped her face. “How the fuck did you leave the room?”

  She stepped back, bewildered “I’ve never seen you out of control like this, johnny—kind of . . . human.”

  Damn, what was happening to me? I’d just been called human. What an insult, even though I was acting human, infantile really. I had become the child in this relationship. I had never behaved like a child before, not even when I was one.

  “Well,” I said glaring, “answer my question.” I don’t know why I couldn’t read her mind, blocked by cursed emotions, perhaps.

  She stepped back further, hurt again. “Your mother rescued me. She’s very kind, really. She said you went to Chile to make peace instead of war with the other Tazmarks. She said you’d be fine.”

  I glared at her—astonished. She believed my mother? “What about the paste we applied to you for protection?”

  “After awhile, I needed to shower, and I’m glad I did.” Her face lit. “Your mother taught me how to use Shen power to speak languages.”

  I stared at her—always-gullible Jen. She did need me. She knew Aruka was a Tazmark. She knew. And she knew Tazmarks lied.

  “johnny?” she asked, trying to obtain a response.

  How could I respond? She flew into lies of goodness as if they were the real thing, believing what she wanted to believe: always-in light, always in love—never in darkness, and never in me.

  Sadness clouded my ire. I stepped up to her and traced my finger along her temple—longing, longing always for what she would not grant me.

  “johnny?” she asked again, sweetly, so sweet.

  She had crept back into her dream, pretending earth was heaven. Would she never realize that earth was heaven and hell? And Tazmarks
were the hell of it. We were lying, cheating, apathetic, soul-sucking vampires to human beings. It was our job to answer the call. And she called, whether she realized it or not.

  “johnny, what’s wrong with you?”

  Her eyes revealed it—the innocent victim, still. Perhaps forevermore. She walked into danger, again and again, a subconscious set up to suffer, abiding religious beliefs. Her religious roots grew as a terrible weed that never would die, no matter how hard she plucked at it from the surface. Always it replenished, reaching out to strangle her, commanding her to suffer for her sins, no matter how human or petty they may be.

  “johnny, talk to me.”

  I took her head in my hands and kissed her forehead—slowly, tenderly, hoping the kiss would melt into her, as hers so often did me. I could protect her from the world, but not from herself. She habitually sacrificed herself for the well-being of others. That meant she must suffer. She must. I had to protect her from that natural law. I had to find a way.

  The red-haired, Angel Boy walked over to us. In a French accent, he said, “I can take you to the hospital.”

  Jen touched my arm. “johnny, this is my friend, André."

  I glared at him, my orange eyes whirling, whirling.

  He fell into a trance, staring into my eyes.

  I licked my lips. A Shen was a delicacy to devour, even though this one did not call. Even so, he could do me well, give me the boost I needed. I was still out of sorts. I required more spirits to nourish me now because I was withholding the ones from my nuclear kill to create Gankors. The ones I hadn’t withheld, I had already consumed to survive that cursed Black Box. Night was distant. I wanted him now.

  Jen stood back and blinked. She knew my ways. “No johnny,” she said shaking her head, “no.”

  “No?” I broke the trance. Why? Why was I obeying her? Had I become her fucking dog?

  She shook her head, her eyes pleading.

  What a treat he would have been. I used to love moments like this, but Jen took all the fun out of it.

  She captured my arm and pulled me away, looking back at her friend. Her sunny voice lit the air, “Thanks André, I’ll tend him.” She waved lightly. “I’ll call you soon.”

  He waved his hand in reply. “I’ll be waiting.”

  She hurried me along the streets. “Can you fly us back? I don’t want people staring at you.”

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Please, johnny.”

  The word ‘please’ from any other mouth would have earned a fist. But her pleases softened me, not the phony, manipulative ones, but the earnest ones that came from the well of deeper love. I felt like the wicked witch of the west melting from Dorothy’s bucket of water.

  I grumbled and led her down an alley. I lifted her in my arms, aggravating my Gankor wounds, but I expressed no pain. We flew into the sixth realm and landed in the third realm hotel room. I set her down on her feet. My pain did not subside.

  She stroked my long matted hair in a motherly fashion like I was a kid who’d scraped his knee. “I’ll heal you.” She slipped her hand over mine and led me to the black love sofa. She sat me down on velvet, and lowered her knees to the floor in front of me. She looked up and smiled kindly. “Before I work on you, tell me what happened.”

  I was uncomfortable playing the weak one, yet a part of me enjoyed this bizarre sensation of being mothered. Still, I couldn’t allow it. I had to seize control of her and the male Shen.

  “Talk to me,” she said resting her palms on my knees, “let me help you.”

  I leaned back on the sofa and manifested a lit cigarette.

  “johnny?”

  I took a drag imagining how delicious Angel Boy’s pumper would taste, and how well his spirit would serve me if I could absorb him through a martyr call.

  She shook my knees gently. “Talk to me, johnny.”

  I grunted. “He doesn’t know he’s a Shen, does he?”

  She jerked her head back. “André . . . is a Shen?”

  Damn I was losing my touch. I should have known she didn’t know.

  She rose and cantered around the room with an excitement I’d not seen in her before. “johnny, that’s great. I am so delighted!”

  I wasn’t delighted. And I despised her delight. I took another drag, burning away half the cigarette. She longed for kinship with one of her own kind. She wanted him. And he wanted her. But she was mine. I took another deep drag down to the butt, and I did not exhale. The smoke curled around inside my Tazmarkian lungs feeding my hungry cells. I stared at her prancing about the room. You’d think she’d have taken time to heal me first. I exhaled the smoke, made the cigarette butt disappear, and glared hotly at her.

  Fury trampled the sweetness I had felt for her. It surged in my limbs, gushing into my fingers that wanted to strangle something. Fury in a Tazmark is a dangerous thing. And I tried to control it, to push it down. I tried, but it consumed me, used me, and over ran my will.

  As she approached me cheery-eyed, I lunged up and snatched her wrists. I drove her against the wall, smacking her back too hard, and a picture fell to the carpet. I pinned her hands against the gold and black wallpaper and kissed her roughly, squashing my chest against her, moving side to side, smearing the blood from my wounds over her pretty blue dress.

  “johnny!” She pushed her wrists against my hands.

  I pressed them harder against the wall. I might even push her through the wall. Bitch.

  What was this feeling? It must be what humans call—jealousy, a vicious little emotion that can grow big. I couldn’t quell the beast. Jealousy took me, and I wanted to take her. Her, with that ever diligent call for sacrificial pain. The shrill tone she emitted, though silent to her, was loud in my ears, inciting me to reply. Between my jealousy, her call, and my driving hunger—I could delay no more.

  Transmogrification began. My skin thickened; my teeth sharpened.

  “johnny!” she shrieked, “you promised! You promised you would never do this again.”

  I did promise. I did. But this moment, I couldn’t seem to care. I’d been turned upside down, inside out, demeaned, and defeated by a . . . Tazmark, my father no less, and in competition with a man . . . a measly human, no more. This was all beneath me. I could not see straight. But I did promise her I’d never turn on her as once I did. And yet—I was.

  “johnny?” her fear-filled voice made her martyr call syrupy rich. She always felt more comfortable dying than fighting to live. Fear enhanced her fragrant blood scent and lured my dehydrated body into action before I fully changed, but my fangs were there and that was all I needed. I’d been days deprived. My fangs sunk into her neck, hard at first. The skin exterior snapped and broke way into the carotid artery.

  She jolted with a loud moan.

  I finished transmogrification. Crimson rivers washed over my fangs. I fastened my lips to the wound, sucking thirstily. As a connoisseur of fine blood, hers was exemplary.

  Liquid fell upon my cheek, though I couldn’t feel it per se, only the change upon me. I smelled tears, a great flood of tears.

  Her tears held innocence, sparking memories of what I cherished in her. Her . . . Jen. Her. What was I doing? What!

  I stopped mid-suck. But my fury remained.

  Her whisper carried pain, “Why do you hurt me!”

  I removed my Tazmarkian lips and said meanly in her ear, “Isn’t that what you want?”

  Her tears had seeped into the corners of my snout. Blood had trailed down her neck blending with the wash of tears that thickened where our bodies pressed together. I still felt wild. I still wanted to harm her. I couldn’t. Love, was it? Was it?

  She was etched into me: azure eyes, simplistic and true, hopeful inflections in her voice, ever viewing people’s brightest side; the power to heal, the power to fucking heal—one thing I could never do. My human form returned.

  I loosened my grip. My head dropped to her shoulder. I drew her hand from the wall and placed it over her neck wound
so she could heal it. Her tears dripped with intermittent sniffles as dazzling white light flowed from her palm into her wound. Her gentle weeping stirred me, instead of evoking the usual kill. I could not kill her. Not her.

  I stepped back to view the damage I had done. She stood there straight and still, eyes closed, trembling, one hand on her wound flowing Divine Light—the other limp at her side, in a kind of shock. Blood had soaked into her yellow hair and pretty blue dress.

  Guilt. Now, guilt. I think it was guilt—not meager guilt, but intense guilt, the way I’d witnessed it on humans. Of all the inane human emotions, guilt was the most dim-witted. Had I really been reduced to that? Damn I was feeling low. I was beginning to curse the day I’d opened the door to human emotions. I had been better off without them. How could I have craved them, craved this?

  Jen’s hand drifted down her smooth neck, puncture free. Her eyes opened—flecked with sorrow more than fear, and she stared into mine quietly, tears still dripping down her cheeks finding passage to her neck.

  I magically made the blood on her vanish. Her hair was clean and yellow and her pretty dress was blue again, though I doubted she’d ever see it that way. I slid off my black glove and wiped away her tears with my finned hand, hoping I could wipe away the pain she felt from my dastardly deed. But still they fell. She didn’t understand how much she called for suffering. She didn’t know it strained me not to comply, especially with jealousy and hunger in the works.

  Her sad stare searched the darkness of my eyes for something redeeming. With quivering lips, she swallowed hard. “You love me. I know you do, or I’d be dead. Something awful drove you to hurt me, something that has made you dangerously agitated. Tell me what happened to you, johnny.”

  Blood oozed out of the gashes on my face, dripping to the carpet. Rage had made it flow. Rage strains muscles, and a Tazmark’s rage could explode them, but better that than being humble. Being humble would only lead to humiliation, and I’d had enough of that.