An Angel's Touch Read online

  She reached out her hand. “Let me heal you.”

  I thrust it away with a growl, feeling I deserved to suffer. I trekked to the bed, then plopped down in a suave pose, manifesting another lit cigarette. I took a drag, deep and sating. Fuck feelings. Fuck humans. Exhaling smoke, my disgrace whirled up to the ceiling. I had dishonored the Tazmarkian race, her, and myself. I clenched my jaw, aggravating my facial wounds.

  She stepped out of her shoes and padded softly to me. She ascended the footstep stairs, then snuggled close to me on her side, melting my arrogant pose. Her head came down on my chest, yellow hair over black, loving and forgiving—as always. Vengeance did not run in her blood. But oh, how it ran in mine.

  “Get rid of that thing,” she said, alluding to my cigarette.

  I took a deep drag and deleted it magically.

  She sat up on her knees.

  “Remove your shirt,” she said, gently.

  I made my shirt disappear.

  She winced, viewing the bloody craters that riddled my skin.

  Supernaturally imposed wounds do not heal well. Sometimes, not at all. Blood oozed with the slightest pressure. With fingers I could barely feel, she stroked my face, drawing her hand down over my chest. Blue healing light of personal love left her hand, blue, because her white divine light was lethal to me. The blue light soaked into me, filling my whole body from the inside, spilling out over my skin. My skin and muscles felt charged, pulling, tugging—soft and strong, stretching, itching, then nothing. The wounds all over my body had closed and disappeared.

  “I need a wet washcloth,” she said.

  I made a gold, damp washcloth appear on my chest. She wiped the dried blood off my face. The dull ache vanished, along with my jealousy, rage, and worry. Peace had found me. Once boring peace now comforted me. I closed my eyes. Only sleep could claim me now.

  “johnny?”

  Or not.

  “Talk to me, johnny.”

  I should have known she wouldn’t let it go.

  Her concerned voice flowed into my ears like soft wind in the trees. “What’s happening?”

  “Love,” I murmured wearily, “it’s killing me.” I lifted my head and looked her in the eye so that she could see I was serious. “I mean—literally.”

  “Killing you?”

  I rested my head and closed my eyes again.

  She wiped the dried blood off my chest. “I don’t understand. I’ve been careful not to hurt you.”

  “It’s not you.” My weary tone held an edge of ire. “It is what I feel for you.”

  I nearly told her how I’d killed men who pined over women the way I pined over her. Such weakness enraged me. Now I was one of them. I finally understood the term, ‘fall in love.’ I never understood the hell of it. I realized then why Tazmarks had few emotions, and dark one’s at that, for how else could chaos be exacted on those who called? Love, compassion, and, oh yeah, guilt—would be in the way. Guilt. All the poor women I’d made fall in love with me had suffered more than I ever realized, especially when I finally betrayed them. Damn, that realization made me feel better.

  Jen turned the washcloth over and wiped dried blood off my arms. “johnny, it doesn’t make sense. Love is good. What we feel for each other—is good.”

  “Good is bad for me. I wasn’t meant to be good.”

  “But you’re still bad. I mean . . . you carry on with your nightly ritual.”

  “I’ve been withholding my true desires.”

  “What?” she said defensively, drawing back. “You mean, to be with other women?”

  I opened one eye. She was hugging her stomach with the washcloth bunched in one hand. She could be so immature at times.

  I opened my other eye and touched her arm to assure her. “No. It’s not as simple as that.”

  “Simple?” she scooted back so far, my hand lost contact with her. “What could be worse than that?”

  “Jen, that is nothing. And it’s not the problem.”

  She huffed, “And just what is?”

  So much for peace. So much for sleep. I pushed against my extreme exhaustion and sat up, draping my arms over upward bent knees. “If I meet my needs, you’ll want to leave me, and most certainly not love me. Yet, in denying myself, I am weakened. Weakened, I can’t protect you. You need protection because you call for suffering.”

  “I don’t call for suffering. At least not anymore, not after the Montana ordeal.”

  “You do. My mother is dangerous.” I didn’t feel like telling her about father. “And I’m losing the power to defend you as I once could.”

  “I don’t believe your mother would hurt me. She is kind.”

  Savage darkness crossed my face. “Lies. Tazmarks lie, Jen. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

  “Not you, johnny. You said you’d never lie to me.”

  “Maybe that was a lie,” I said, lying back down, hands behind my head.

  She turned to get off the bed, leaving the bloodied washcloth in a wad by the edge as if to say, ‘after all I’ve done for you.’ She slipped off the high mattress. Her skirt hiked up behind her, flashing her thighs before she landed on the padded carpet. She whirled around. Her curtain of shiny yellow hair split, draping down the front of her shoulders. Little girl. Little girl, glaring at the big, bad ogre, hand clenched over her heart.

  She said, “You’re being mean.”

  “Yes,” I sighed, “it feels good.”

  “I know you love me,” she said with a hint of desperation, as if trying to convince herself. “You could have ended me many times. You haven’t. You fell protectively over my body in Montana, and took the blow the Dark One had meant for me. You cried out for me not to leave earth when I was dying.”

  She began to get hysterical as she sometimes does. And it rather pleased me.

  She stepped backwards until her shoulders pressed against the wall. “You love me, johnny,” she trembled, “don’t you?”

  She was so gullible. So tender. So there.

  I pleasured in her pain no longer. I trudged through my exhaustion and forced myself off the bed, toward her. Her sad, soft eyes never left mine. Her pupils flickered that old, familiar fear as I arrived. I cradled her cheeks in my hands, and said sincerely, softly, and managed sweetly, “I do love you.”

  Her eyes watered. My forehead fell gently against hers. The heat of her was cracking the heart I never knew I had. I wanted to absorb the pain I’d caused her. I sighed, lifted my head, and gazed at her in long dark silence. Why was I able to excuse her from her weaknesses? It was I, it seemed, who had the unconditional love. I—the devil. Why couldn’t she have it for me? She was the angel.

  “Have you lied to me?” she asked with big eyes.

  “Not about loving you.”

  “About what then?”

  “As long as the love is real, does it matter?”

  She heaved several quick breaths as if contemplating whether or not to pursue the lie issue. “Well, the love between us . . . that is what matters.”

  “You say that. But you don’t mean it.”

  “I mean it,” she said, looking down.

  I shook my head. She didn’t mean it. I went back to the bed, lying in the middle, flat on my back. I needed sleep.

  She came to the bed and stood at its high edge. “I do love you, johnny.”

  I peeked at her through the slits of my eyes. “You lecture me perpetually on the beauties of love. Yet, you have forgotten what it is, what it truly is, what it was meant to be—unconditional. You, like typical humans, bind it with conditions that make it not love. I used to wish love was real. Now that I know it is, I wish it wasn’t.”

  She moved the wadded washcloth to the end table by the bed, as if to say, ‘after all you do for me.’ She lifted her leg to get on the mattress because the stool was on the other side. Her knee fell short, so she hopped, but not high enough. She reached over to me in a long stretch touching my arm with her fingertips. “Don’t wish love away. Give me
time. I’ll come around.”

  Keeping her fingertips on my arm, she tried swinging her leg up a time or two to no avail. The perplexed expression on her face made me want to laugh, but I held back, fearing she might stop trying to come forward.

  “We’ll break through this impasse somehow,” she said.

  She used her other hand to try and propel her body up on the bed. Her determination to make it up without breaking physical contact with my arm pleased me as much as it amused me. Her dilemmas were always so simple, unlike mine—and yet her simple quandaries touched me in profound ways. Her problems were easy to solve. And solving them brought me joy, a foreign but pleasant emotion.

  I rolled on my side, leaned over, and reached my arm around her back. I hoisted her up on the bed, drawing her body against me, while magically thinking myself clean and pleasant smelling from hair to toes, and clothed only in black, silk pajama pants. She nuzzled her head against my shoulder, and draped her arm across my chest like a wing.

  We lay there quietly. I was sinking into greatly required sleep. My chest burned but I was too weary to respond. The burning intensified, then suddenly seared with pain. I flung away her arm, and shot to a sitting position.

  “johnny!” she sat up too.

  “What are you doing?” I asked tersely, looking down at my chest, burned red in the shape of her arm.

  Her eyes widened. Her words flowed like a quickly spoken nursery rhyme. “I saw my arm as a white feathered wing. I felt the power from a constellation of stars fill the feathers. I knew then that if I channeled power from the constellation, I could make people feel better than ever I had before. I’m sorry, johnny. I didn’t think it would make you feel worse.”

  She was coming into her power as surely as I was losing mine. “You know you can’t do to me what you do to others.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I just felt—inspired.”

  “Leave me out of your inspirations.”

  “I’ll try.” She touched my burn and filled it with blue light. The pain vanished. So did the burn.

  “That’s better. Now I’m going to sleep. I haven’t slept in four days.”

  I started to lean back, but she caught my arm. “Where have you been, johnny? What happened to you?”

  I glared at her, contemplating whether or not to tell her. My words spilled out against my better judgment. I guess I needed to talk. Talking. A human need. Damn, I was pathetic.

  “I was attacked.”

  “By who?”

  “My father.”

  “Your father!”

  “Yeah, good old dad.”

  She gulped. “Is he . . . more powerful . . . than you?”

  “Apparently so. He would have had me, but your Angels . . . ” I choked on the words, “you know.”

  “Helped you? My Angels helped you?” She smiled. Her eyes glistened with joyful tears. I should have known that’d touch her. “That’s beautiful, johnny.”

  “No, it’s not. Can’t you see, it’s undoing me.”

  “Maybe you need to be undone. Maybe it will free us.”

  “Love does to me, what violence does to you. Imagine that Jen. If there were a Satan, I mean one that caused war, disease, and famine, could you embrace him? His deeds—and needs?”

  She cocked her head suspiciously. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “You thrive on connection. I thrive on separation. If you merge me—I die.”

  “What do you mean you thrive on separation? You are a creature like a wolf, or lion, except that you are a Dragon—kind of, and you do Dragon things . . . the things I know about. Right? Or is this about the lies you mentioned?”

  “What if the Dragon things involved more than you suspected?”

  Her body stiffened. Her face froze with a look of impending doom. If I told her, she would shatter.

  I said, “I need sleep. Lay with me. We’ll talk later. Later, we will decide what to do.”

  “What do you mean we’ll decide what to do? What is there to do?”

  “Sh,” I drew her into my arms. Remembering Angel Boy was to call her, I killed the phone. “Ease the pain in my heart, Angel.” I nodded off as her hand crept up to my heart, into my love, relieving the ache that had permeated my very soul. Shens were good at that.

  Chapter Six

  I knew I had slept long when I opened my eyes. My stiff bones told me that. I’d been feeding off the spirits I’d inhaled in Russia. My stomach growled. I needed tangible food. My body couldn’t survive much longer.

  Jen’s head came over me, her straight blonde hair caving her face. Her worried eyes proved she cared. I was pleased. With her knees angled into my ribcage, she plunged her pink lips to my face, depositing a shipment of dainty kisses. The ends of her hair brushed against my cheeks. I longed to feel the tickle.

  When she lifted her head, her cheeks were wet. “You’re alive! You’re okay!” Her chest dove to mine. She squeezed me tight, cheek to cheek. I could feel the pressure, but I wanted the sensation, whatever it was. I wished she’d cling harder, to bite, to pierce flesh, so I could feel something.

  Her head popped up, tear-slathered lashes, puffy eyelids and all. “When you sleep, your heart seems to still, and you look dead. I feared you were.”

  I felt rusted through and through. I couldn’t even get in her head to examine her mind. “How long have I been out?” my voice rasped.

  “Six days! Six long days.”

  She wore black: a three quarter sleeve, rather classy dress. Rare for her. “You’re wearing my color.” I glided my hand down the contours of her side until I touched her bare thigh. “Short, form fitting—not really your style.” She had a bit of make up on too, pink lipstick and mascara—something she rarely applied. I tried to get into her head to determine why she’d upgraded her look, suspicious it was for Angel Boy. Still, I couldn’t read her mind. I was a little ashamed to have to ask, but I needed the answer.

  “Why are you wearing this?”

  “I wanted to please you.”

  Good answer. Smart answer. True? I didn’t know.

  I tried to raise my hand to touch her face, but my arm was too glutted with sleep to make the journey. “I like it when you attempt to please me. You seldom try.”

  “That’s because I am too busy adjusting to all the strange ordeals you put me through.”

  “You didn’t know if or when I’d awaken, yet you wore it today?”

  “You know how some people show their loyalty to missing loved ones by wearing arm bands or bracelets, or by tying a yellow ribbon around a tree? Well, this dress is what I’ve been wearing for you. I bought it from the hotel dress boutique.”

  “You grieved for me? I thought you’d be relieved to have me out of your life.”

  “It is hard living with you, johnny, but it is harder living without you. I don’t want to, no matter how bad you are.”

  Perhaps I was making progress with her. Maybe my sacrifice had paid off. My stomach growled loudly.

  “You’re hungry.” She climbed off the bed, all mother-like and bright faced. “I’ll get you . . . .” she froze, “I mean, it won’t be dark for quite some time, and . . . ,” she gulped, “I mean, what . . . what can I get you . . . to tide you over?” She sighed hard, as if relieved that she’d succeeded in avoiding words such as, it will be a while before you can kill someone.

  I assessed her facial expression. Though she didn’t say it, she was, in a way, endorsing the act. I could hardly believe my ears. She had never supported my nightly hunt. A test was in order.

  “johnny? What can I get you?”

  “A feline.”

  “A feline? A . . . cat?”

  “Yes, a cat would tide me over.”

  “You want me to bring you a live cat? I was thinking more along the lines of a steak.”

  “I require something alive.”

  She coughed, choking on the thought of the task I’d laid before her. “How about . . . a mouse?”

  “A mou
se? That’s not as nourishing as a cat, but all right—a mouse.”

  “Okay.” She paused. “Or . . . how about . . . a grasshopper.”

  I furrowed my brows. “A grasshopper? Did you hear how loudly my stomach growled?”

  “I just don’t think I can condemn a mouse to death.”

  “Even if it means I will die?”

  “No, of course not, but you are quite capable of getting your own—” she gulped, “food. I’d rather the fate of the mouse be in your hands.”

  “I am weak, Jen. I need you to hunt for me.”

  Her eyes squinted. “How am I supposed to catch a mouse?”

  “A pet store.”

  “Can’t you manifest a mouse?”

  “I can’t manifest living creatures. And I am not well enough to travel or hunt.”

  “There is nothing you can do to feed yourself? Honest johnny?”

  I nodded. Of course, I wasn’t being honest. Or, maybe I was. In truth, I wasn’t sure what I could and couldn’t do right now. Even so, I had to know if she’d do this small thing for me.

  “Okay johnny. I might be a while though.” She kneaded her hands. “I mean, I have to find a pet store . . . and all.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  She turned toward the end table by the bed, then took her small, white square purse and slid the strap over her shoulder. Her purse didn’t match the eloquence of her dress, but she didn’t care. I rather liked that. She stared hard at me and sighed. She stared harder for a moment and sighed again. Then she walked hesitantly to the door, slipped on her black pumps, and turned around, sighing long and loud. Her face fell with another sigh, searching me for a last minute reprieve.

  I feigned a needful expression.

  “I have to do this, huh?”

  “I require live food.”

  She sighed again, pausing there at the door with cemented feet. I almost thought she’d start clicking her shoe heels together and chant, “There’s no place like home.” Maybe then she’d disappear from her nightmare—me. After a tick tock of eternal moments, she pushed through her resistance and forced herself out the door.