“Of thorns?” Achilles asked for a clarification of the crown, his face dark with anger.
“No, not thorns. It was made out of twigs from a fruit tree, and it had all of these little blossoms on it,” the investigator said. “Like what a girl would wear on her wedding day.” His voice quivered with disgust at the facts he was delivering. After wishing us condolences and giving us his card, the veteran officer retreated to the door and left.
I looked at Achilles, who said quietly, “Not crucified. Espaliered.” The contemptuous, yet playful method of Gabriel’s murder revealed beyond doubt two things: Elizabeth was watching, and she had help virtually anywhere in the world. The ghostly fingers tightened anew.
37
New Orleans: Joseph
“You must lie still or the baby will not survive. Do you understand this?” Joseph glared into the dark eyes of the woman, who lay sweating and straining on the creaky bed.
She agreed, biting her lip hard, and gave a single shake of her head, then blew air in torrents through the gap in her teeth. Joseph kept her legs apart, and his voice cracked with authority as he cleared the curious husband and her other children from the room.
“Out. Now.”
Cowed by his position and theirs, they shuffled from the stinking bedroom with only the barest of backward glances. Her hands tore at the sheets as another contraction rippled across her distended abdomen, leaving her gasping for air as she sucked short, violent breaths into her lungs, fighting to oxygenate her blood during what was becoming a very difficult birth.
“The other children, they were all so easy,” she coughed, dashing out words in between the tormented motion of her ribcage, which rose and fell like a spastic bellows under her worn cotton shift.
Joseph put a hand on her forehead and shushed her. “Save your breath. The baby is close now. You must not push until I say so, do you understand?” When she moved her chin frantically, he knew that her pain was reaching the zenith. He pushed the needle into her arm without warning, and the drug immediately made her relax, her arms and face going still.
Muttering to himself, Joseph began to spread a measure of fine white muslin at the juncture of her legs. The head was clear of her body, and the remainder of the child soon slid onto the cloth, mewling nearly silently. A sleepy baby. The drugs have worked just as she said. He wrapped the babe and carefully laid it alongside the mother, who was still free of any semblance of lucidity.
Head lolling, she reached instinctively for her child, but in the wrong direction. With even greater care, Joseph spread a second length of muslin, allowing an extra moment of preparation as he shook salt liberally over the snowy expanse of cloth. The mother gasped in agony, a considerable feat considering she had been given a near-fatal dose of medication, and Joseph knew that his moment was at hand. Another massive rippling wave raced across her loosened abdomen, and in seconds, the twin, who would never be seen and never draw a breath, came out, where Joseph took the still form in his shaking hands, and began to wrap his prize in the swaddling cloth crusted with salt, around and around. One for you, and one for mother’s guest. When he was done, he placed the shape in his bag, but gently. It wouldn’t do to bruise the meat.
38
New Orleans: The Archangels Enoch and Davis
“You must be Doctor Mpemba. It’s my pleasure to meet you.” David stuck out his hand in greeting, and Enoch took it and pumped it once, inwardly pleased at the use of his proper title.
“I am.” Enoch looked around the workspace with cool disdain. He was a scholar, not a shop boy, but his residual fear of Elizabeth made him at least obedient enough to exude some manners. The area was free of dirt, flawlessly organized, and well lighted. On a raised table in the center of the room, small materials boxes sat in a ruler-straight line. Labels on each indicated a variety of gems, metals, and stones. There were even several polished lengths of wood that looked, even to Enoch’s untrained eye, like they were prized from rare trees. Their singular grains ran the gamut from buttery to crackled to deeply burnished colors he had not imagined possible.
One small ring of wood pulsed like a frozen circlet of ox blood, holding Enoch’s gaze for a long moment until he tore his eyes from it and asked in a polite tone that surprised him, “How may I be of help to you, Davis? These things, they are not what I expected. They are quite captivating.”
Davis looked at the surroundings with pride. He unrolled a sheet of parchment that crackled with protest, and Enoch saw something that made his bowels turn to water. Before he could recoil, Davis said, “I would like to create this”—he pointed lightly at the sketch—“out of that.” In his other hand, he held the ring of dark, reddened wood. “Of course, as a jeweler, there are a few suggestions that Elizabeth made which will challenge every ounce of my artistry, but with someone of your intellect, I feel like this could be a masterwork, an artifact in the flesh, and of our time, so to speak. Something to be remembered, even revered, and kept close to that which we hold dear.”
Enoch suppressed a full-bodied moment of panic and forced himself to remain calm. “What, ah, suggestions did Elizabeth make regarding that thing on the paper?”
“Oh, the Negwenya?” Davis asked.
Does he not see it? Enoch mused, but without betraying his inner turmoil. “Yes, the serpent.” He felt soiled even looking at the thing, refusing to speak its name.
“We are to render it in a complex matrix of wood and filigreed silver, and gems are to be used, with no limitations. There is only one requirement for the stones, however.”
Enoch did shudder then, as he asked, “Which is?”
“They must all be pointing inward. Odd, one would think that the beauty should be on the outside, but she was most specific. Large gemstones, mine-cut, rough and inward. Other than that, we have complete license to craft as we see fit. Quite generous of her, don’t you think?” He smiled with the pleasure of a man given a task at which he can excel. Enoch knew that face. It was one he had lorded over submissive sexual partners for a decade, and, as he sat at the table, he wondered why it disturbed him so much.
39
Florida: Ring
Kevin met me at home, dressed in his official garb. His expression was grim, and under that I sensed cold, barely controlled anger. Before I could even greet him, he said, “It’s started.” His eyes narrowed and cut away with a flicker. I knew he wavered between blaming all of us for Gabriel’s death and fearing that he was witnessing something evil and inevitable from a vantage point that was a bit too hot for safety.
“You’re right on both accounts, you know. Gabriel’s dead because of us, in a way, and there was absolutely nothing, anything, that could have prevented it. The impotence that you’re feeling right now? I feel it every single time some Undying asshole makes an example or a meal or a joke of a human life simply because they can. If you wondered at all as to the evil of Elizabeth, hell, of immortals in general when they’re bloodletting-- remember this moment. Sear it into your memory because you’ve been trained to forgive, Kevin. You’ve been trained to love unconditionally, and that muscle memory will cost your life, too, if you let it overpower the most basic reactions you should be having to these animals. Stop thinking of them in human terms. I don’t. Risa and Wally don’t. Neither should you, not anymore. Not since this.” I ground out the last words, thinking again of Gabriel.
Kevin leaned against the wall, the angular planes of his face still flushed with emotion but his pose relaxed slightly. He asked softly, “Where does that leave Delphine?”
I reconsidered as he waited for me to regain my temper. “She’s different, and saying that makes me a liar, doesn’t it?”
He held my shoulder and looked at me intently. I was being counseled, and I realized that speaking like this was his life’s calling. Kevin was in his element advising people to think, not lash out, and I owed him my calm.
With effort, I settled myself as he said, “Ring, absolutes, especially applying them to people? It’s the r
oad to—well, to death. I respect your anger and the loathing that you feel, I sincerely do. But you are too good a soul to become a one-dimensional murderer. I am begging you, as a man of God, please do not descend into depravity. I ask you to reconsider your role among the immortals you will eventually join, and we know that is happening. Let me be a fixed point for you to follow during your next foray. I offer you my friendship and my spiritual assistance. I cannot raise a hand on your behalf, but I can extend my hand to you should you ever need it.” His eyes never left mine, and I knew that his offer was a sincere, albeit thin rope for me to grasp as I prepared to swing into a void.
“Thank you. I think I’ll need it.” I rolled my shoulders as the weight of an oncoming storm began to drift downward onto them. “We all will.” Air rushed through my teeth as I finally regained my composure. “I know of many immortals who are worthy of my respect, not just my supposed mercy.”
“Supposed?” Kevin asked, confused.
“I think my self-worth is a bit inflated. There are Undying who would swat me like a fly, and here I am swearing to cleanse the earth of their likes. As if I could.” I shook my head ruefully, amazed at how righteous anger can overinflate my self-perceived skill as a brawler.
Kevin let his head fall back and he stared upward, searching for something. “Delphine is well worth saving, and she deserves to be held in high regard, no matter what her history might be. She is your friend, Ring, and while it’s true I don’t approve of her profession or her propensity for murder, I am not the one to judge her. None of us are. We are”—he looked upward again, then back to me—“all flawed, and the entire notion that I am qualified to counsel you as to who cannot be saved is anathema to my training, and offensive to my heart. Do what you must, Ring. Your instincts are much better than mine in this regard; I only ask that you tread lightly with your rage. These decisions you are making? They are permanent.”
40
The Archangel Karen
She glistened with a clean, healthy sweat, coming to rest on the floor with the ease of muscle memory rediscovered. I feel like a teenager again. The mirrored wall embellished the internal glow or her well-being, and no longer did she see a woman broken. No, the face looking at her with clear, steady eyes was pretty, free of blemishes, and alight with the after-effects of three hard hours practicing the things she thought were lost. Karen took liberty with her own body, running a hand sensuously up the length of a leg that was tight, muscular, and shapely. Where these new details had come from with such haste was beyond her. She only knew an innate pleasure as the endorphins crashed through her with abandon, granting a high that was pure, natural, and paid for in sweat.
He will come to me tonight; I must shower and be ready for him. Again. She nearly trilled with delight, thinking of Joseph’s long, insistent fingers, his mouth, even the brush of his hair against her thighs as he consumed and rewarded her in ways that prick Roland had never imagined. Joseph had taken her, softly but insistently, and the first time she had merely lain there, submissive and fearful that resistance was the catalyst for her exile from this home. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d traded a fuck for a roof, but she knew those days were past her.
On the second visit, she caught herself welcoming him, welcoming his thumb darting into her quickly, then his mouth on her collarbone, and finally, when he slid inside her, she let her arms fall back as her resistance fled the scene and he inhabited every place her body could offer him. Willingly, too, and then, by the third night, she mounted him, biting his lip and covering him with her hair, which seemed to have gotten impossibly long and silky in two days. He grasped at her, and she rolled down his body like a starving wave, only ceasing when her breath came in gasps too quick to fill her empty lungs, and spots began to color her world even as her next orgasm pushed her hips into his face like a challenge. He did not shy from this, and it was only hours later that Joseph left her, sated and drowsy, watching as her skin grew soft, her eyes clearer, and her hands, once scarred by life, became new again. That was the key to this place. She was being reborn, made into what she could have been, but for Roland, and it fit her like an approving glance.
Karen stepped into the cavernous shower and turned on stinging spray, then she languidly washed the effects of the dancing from her pink skin. He would fuck her insensate, and she would give as good as she got. As she soaped herself in long, languorous motions, she began to think of the coming morning, after Joseph would leave. Her lips curled up, cognizant of the fact that when the sun broke new across the slick floors, Karen could again dance, all day long. A thought, unbidden, came to her, piquant and demanding. She felt her lip extend in a sensual pout, something she had not done in decades. I want to dance. But I also want to perform.
41
Florida: Ring
Gabriel was buried in Portsmouth, near the crumbling wall of a churchyard that dated from the time of the Roman Empire. Glen called us after the service to share those details in a voice that was still mute with shock. The decision had been made; Glen was to be protected from the ugliness of what we knew. How they planned on achieving this, I had no idea, but I assumed that when Achilles planned to keep someone alive, he made good on those words. It had been a small, quiet ceremony as there wasn’t much family. Gabriel had been divorced, with no children, but several older neighbors who regarded him as a son had lingered after the service, huddling close to Glen in a defensive ring despite their average age being well over seventy.
Thoughts of vengeance made the room tilt until I regained control. I could feel unfiltered hatred in my mind, and I nearly shook with the effort not to punch something. It was these moments anger that toughened my resolve, and I felt myself renew the promise I made to see justice brought to Elizabeth. And her daughters, for that matter, but I took it one step at a time in my head. It didn’t benefit anyone to get overconfident when dealing with Undying, especially those among the elite ranks of evil. Still, in my bones I felt the prickle of hate that transformed me from sadness to purpose, and I began to realize that the life I enjoyed would either succeed or fail based on the next encounter with our enemy. She was our reason and our fears. I felt myself drifting through the day in a fugue state that fluttered from anger to frustration, and the odd moment of numbness.
Wally passed through the living room after showering and put her hand on my shoulder with a soft touch. “Suma will be here soon. We’re going to discuss some security precautions with Boon. We will handle that; you find something to do, something fun.”
“I could talk tactics and drink beer with Achilles. That could be an all-nighter,” I said reasonably.
Wally leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “Yes. You should. I will call Delphine and tell her to meet us at the Butterfly. I want her to know what is happening.”
I agreed. Help in any form was a good thing. Help in the form of someone seasoned and tough was even better.
“I’ll drop by their restaurant and see if Achilles wants to grab a beer after closing. Maybe picking his brain will bolster my confidence.”
Taking her idea to heart, I went to find a clean shirt.
“Nice shirt,” Achilles said as we crossed the parking lot of Strata four hours later.
“Thanks. Wally’s pick,” I said.
Achilles shrugged in understanding. Patroclus hit the alarm on his car, an unpretentious sedan, and we climbed in, just three immortal killers on their way to grab a beer. Two and a half, actually, but their credibility made up for any lack within my own particular license to call myself an immortal.
Achilles rubbed his face with a meaty hand and announced, “I want pub food. British pub food.” He sat in the front driving while Patroclus rode shotgun.
I stretched out in the voluminous back seat. It was plain but big and rather comfortable for my height.
“Up the street from Blue’s place?” Patroclus sounded interested as he asked. “Where they have the eggs?”
“What is it with you an
d quail eggs, anyway? How many can you eat in one week?” I laughed.
“Oh, you uneducated rube,” Achilles began, smiling at me in the rearview mirror. “We’re not going for quail eggs. We are going to dine on one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. A dish of such unequaled masculine pleasure, it causes an almost instantaneous growth of chest hair and a desire to wrestle bears. It is—”
“Okay, I get it, manly. Rargh. Lumberjack food,” I said, and they both laughed.
Patroclus said in the tone of a patient teacher, “These particular eggs are rolled in sausage and bread crumbs and deep-fried. Then, they are served with HB sauce, which, to you Americans, is a combination of barbecue and Worcestershire flavors, but better. Finally, in order to make the dish truly worthy of the title, the diner is insulted by the addition of poor-quality tomato wedges. It is, in my estimation, a fine way to enjoy the wonders of the British Isles without actually going there.” He finished this with a flourish, and I discovered my stomach rumbling at the thought of eating.
“I’m sold. Let’s go,” I enthused just as we passed the Corral with its bright neon cacti standing guard by the door, and then turned into an unobtrusive strip mall a hundred yards past the strip club owned by our friend Blue. “Well, I never knew this was here. I’ve never passed the Corral.”
“And that, young man, is why you are a lecherous addition to the male species and not to be trusted,” Patroclus said.
We parked and began walking through the crowded lot towards the left side, where a series of beer signs and a single wooden plank with the name The Proud Cock had been artfully cut into the shape of a rooster. Subtle but effective. I couldn’t wait to experience their hospitality.
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