It was upon him fast. The heat and anger surged up his neck as he felt the hairs rise, lifted by his rage, and in a second he was standing, the blood roaring in his ears. He felt his arm draw back as Dara’s face registered that moment when violence comes too close and too fast, and then he was on her, one right-handed punch landing under her nose with an audible crack as her eyes flickered like a dying candle and she fell towards her window, her skull ringing against the maple sash, finishing the task his fist had begun.
Tyler had never seen a person die before, and when his breathing slowed, he leaned down close to her. She was so pale, it was an instant transformation from Dara to this thing that lay before him, cooling in the air conditioning of her parents’ home. A flutter of panic, then calm, and Tyler stepped quietly to the window, but not before he placed a triumphant hand on her quiet breast, the last word in violation as he slid out the window to the dewy grass of the lawn. His mind planned, not wildly, but calmly, from the vantage point of a boy who lacked nothing except a conscience, and feared nothing. I can say I was never there. It will look like she fell, but what happens if they find out it was me? The first tickle of fear brushed his worry into something larger, and with each second, the limited logic of a boy began to realize that he was well and truly fucked.
And all because that skank wouldn’t let me touch her tits. Like it was something special. Oh man, oh man, what the fuck am I going to do?
“Yes, Tyler. What are you going to do?”
He whirled on the voice, worry gone to terror in a breath. “Who’s there? Who are you? I’m not Tyler. I’m— who are you?” His progress through the wooded easement that separated the houses stalled. He saw a silhouette, a woman, and then she walked to him, sauntering, her feet bare but still wearing what, to Tyler’s eyes, looked like a very expensive dress.
“You’ve been quite busy tonight, and all because of a simple—misunderstanding? Who was she to tell you no?” Closer to him, he could see she was beautiful. Way hotter than anyone he knew, and so very close. She reached out and took his hand, stroking his fingers with an eroticism that his adolescence could not process. “It’s important for one’s lesser to know their place, don’t you think, Tyler?”
He swallowed once, then screwed up what lingering courage he had and said, “Yes, I mean, if you think so. I just wanted to make out with her, but she was such a bitch. I didn’t mean to hurt her; I don’t even care about her. She was just there, you know?” His contemptibly squalid heart rang true, even fresh from a murder as his natural arrogance began to find footing again. Tyler projected vain, oily courage in the presence of a woman who was clearly some kind of threat. He felt his hand move involuntarily towards her face, the pull of her tide too strong for him in any state, let alone the weak and mentally disheveled moment he inhabited. A shadow passed in front of his hand as his fingers brushed the fabric of her dress.
Snap. “Oh God, oh my God, you fucking bitch, you broke my thumb—” Snap. The second thumb, broken as well, swung drunkenly as the tendons parted without any discussion. Her hands moved again, too fast for him to follow, and he was on his knees thinking he might die here, or she might tell his friends he was a pussy, and that the grass would ruin his pants, but he instinctively knew that his parents would never see his pants because he was never going home. Not now, not after Dara, and not now that this woman was inflicting such casual, instant violence upon him without ever changing her expression of modest amusement. She just moved at will against him, his thumbs hanging in ruin as he sobbed, fully fourteen years old at that second. His bravado from moments earlier was now as scarce as his manners, and for the first time in his memory he knew smothering fear.
“I am Elizabeth, and you will address me as such, or, after I allow it, you may call me Mother.” She deposited a kiss on his mouth, and the spittle from his sobs clung to her for an inelegant second, until she casually flung the errant fluid away with a slim pinky. “I know you have an erection. Is it because I smell like your mother’s friend, the one you masturbated to so furiously all these months since she began visiting?”
Who was this woman? Tyler began to think that dying alone here in the easement was a better option than whatever Elizabeth had planned for him. Even his oafish senses detected the latent threat behind her already exceedingly present menace.
“Sandra, yes? The one with the long legs, who played tennis with your mother? You know,” and she placed her hands on her knees, lowering herself in a conspiratorial murmur, “they like to have wine after tennis, and sometimes, when they tell themselves that they’re buzzed enough, they eat each other’s pussies like they’re going to China. It’s true! Your father would love to know that, he’s been after your mother to have a ménage for years, but she keeps it a little secret, and they wink and giggle like tavern whores every time they serve the ball, knowing that later on, they’ll have their tongues shoved up each other’s highly educated, well-bred asses.”
Tyler collapsed as his defeat became total. He’d seen them, once, on the couch in the pool house, their hands and mouths on each other, laughing in low voices clotted with lust and ignorant of his presence just feet away. He’d gone to his room and fought for hours not to get hard thinking about how they looked with hair askew and eyes closed with lids heavy from passion. The guilt had almost been too much, but his hormones and a weak will had led to his hands finding himself under the covers, thinking all night about how Sandra’s ass looked with her legs in the air and his mom’s face buried under her skirt.
Elizabeth wavered and kissed him again, this time on his forehead. “I don’t want you to ever feel badly about such natural feeling, Tyler. You’ll come with me, of course, and we’ll not speak of such unpleasant things again. Forget Dara. Forget your parents. They forgot you years ago, and you’ve known it for some time. I am your home now, and I have a very important job for you.”She turned and walked away, her heels swinging in one hand with a jaunty rhythm.
Tyler followed, narrowed eyes downcast, but he stole one look at Elizabeth’s ass, rocking appetizingly in front of him as he stumbled behind. There was nothing else he could do but follow.
For now.
22
Florida
Father Kevin arrived ten minutes early for dinner, a sure sign that he had little or no understanding of women, at least in my estimation. He also brought an excellent bottle of South African red wine, a sign that he may, in fact, understand women, and he also most certainly understood me because he also gifted us with a wedge of a raw goat milk cheese well worth savoring, courtesy of a parishioner. While the girls finished their grooming, although what was going on I couldn’t imagine, after an hour of nearly constant cursing and stomping from both of their bedrooms, I opened the wine, and the good priest and I walked outside to sit by the water.
“This is stellar.” Kevin complimented our yard, the view, and the bounty of the evening in general, and he meant it, which made the statement even more welcome. I had to admit, it was a perfect evening, and the sun was just low enough that shadows began to confuse the line between day and night, a threshold worth savoring. The door opened, releasing Gyro, who was thrilled to have company, and Risa, followed by Wally, who, if fearful of being revealed as an inveterate sinner, was holding up rather well. Risa wore a sundress suitable for the boat, in what I could only assume was a determined effort to remain casual. Wally wore a long skirt and shirt combo that announced her as practically virginal, although the outfit still, somehow, managed to make her legs look like a delivery system for vice. Father Kevin’s eyes widened slightly, not in lust but rather recognition. It seemed, as we began to make our introductions, he was not unaware of being ogled by the two so-called parishioners who stood before him, looking slightly sheepish.
I broke the ice, ever cognizant of their discomfiture, and determined to cash in on my largesse later on, preferably more than once. I’m a giver, I can’t help it.
“Wine? Risa, Wally, this is Father Kevin, who has infor
med me that this evening, he prefers no titles, since we’re having an informal dinner.”
Everyone shook hands and took a meditative sip of wine, while admiring the softly retiring light. Gyro lay in an unusually obedient pose, looking out over the water with eyes that often seemed too small for his massive head, ever on patrol for ducks violating his airspace.
All was right with the world, for the moment, and then Kevin asked me, “I imagine that I’m not here for confession. We only have a few hours,” and he looked meaningfully at the girls, discerning our family structure with ease, “and I do tend to blush easily after red wine.” He smiled broadly, enjoying his role as a guest in such willfully disobedient surroundings.
Risa smiled into her hand, Wally uttered a nervous laugh, managed not to snort, for once, and I simply nodded, thinking that this man was part sleuth and part psychologist. He was as perceptive a person as I could remember meeting for quite some time, and more importantly, he was of a genuine and obvious intellect.
Before we could speak, Kevin asked, “When we met, Ring, you intimated that your questions were not necessarily hypothetical. Is that still true?”
“It is,” I answered obligingly.
“So, there is a woman who is capable of sowing fear in people of great flaws, who then enters her orbit and, presumably, are—consumed? Destroyed?” Kevin asked, recapping our discussion at the basketball court.
“To be honest, I don’t know exactly what she does to them,” I replied, “or with them, for that matter.”
“Excellent clarification, Ring.” Kevin toasted me and tapped the edge of his glass with a finger as if deciphering a riddle through sound. “Not to be rude, but does this woman have a name?”
Wally said sourly, “Elizabeth. Too pretty for her.” Risa and I nodded in agreement, a gesture that Kevin noticed.
“A regal name,” he began, “but not one that has been free of controversy by any means. So this Elizabeth takes joy in seeing the pain of others. And Ring was honest enough to answer my question, seriously it would seem, when I inquired about her nature. Before I fail to ask this, Risa, Wally, do you both feel that this woman is possibly something unusual?”
Wally looked to Risa, who said, “We don’t think it. We know it.”
Kevin stood quietly, reading our faces for signs of sarcasm or laughter, but seeing none, he gathered himself and formulated a question I could tell he had never considered uttering aloud.
“We are taught in the Church that the presence of evil is no different than, say, a tumor or a lesion, something that has a form and is harmful and can, under proper care, be treated. The metaphysical nature of evil is one of the causes for the gulf between the faithful and the cynics because the entire basis of the Christian faith bridges what some people consider reality and the supernatural. For me, I do not question the viability of my faith; it is a simple article of fact that my savior is not visible, but ever present. Do you understand how I think, perhaps, a bit more clearly?”
“I am a Catholic,” Wally said, a touch defensively. Risa and I identified ourselves as Jewish and Lutheran respectively, but Kevin shook his head as we spoke.
“That is not what I asked you,” he reproved us, but gently, and said, “Do you understand clearly that I am a man who does not think that science and faith are mutually exclusive and that my soul is not only real but at risk to evil beings who would seek to do me harm? And do you understand also that my sacred vow as a priest dictates that I must do everything in my power to protect the innocent—and everyone deserves that title as no man can judge another? So, do you grasp that when you tell me there is a woman who is capable of corruption without mercy that I am compelled to demand that you tell me simply, how do I stop her, and more importantly, where is she located at this very second?”
I looked out over the water at the dying light as a single egret winged into an orange tree, perching for the night and settling with a ruffling of its long, white feathers. Kevin stood facing me, a question still on his face as Risa and Wally opted to punt, looking into their wine glasses as if the secrets of heaven were at the bottom of each. So much for teamwork.
“You mentioned you only have a few hours for a confession,” I began as Kevin smiled and cut his eyes at my now-silent partners. “Well, how do you feel about spending the night?”
Kevin only asked, “Do you have more wine?”
I waved grandly to the house, saying “Of course, and something tells me we’ll need it.”
23
The Archangel Khalil
The early sun was a welcome break from the rigor of winter, which had worn interminably only to grudgingly relent after weeks of frigid rain and mud, and then blissful early summer. It seemed there was precious little spring, but today was as close to the definition as could be had. The city thrived collectively as the sun and light clouds broke evenly, a soft announcement of better things to come. Khalil seethed on the park bench, surrounded by families enraptured with the flawless weather gracing Minneapolis. His face was a sour map of barely contained rage, and he kept his own company, poorly, allowing his gouged pride to fester unchecked.
How dare they fire me! God will take vengeance on them, as will I. I did not even touch the boy, and now I am branded by these pigs whom I allowed into my business for years, smiling like a fool as they gave me their money. I have suppressed those feelings for years, and I am my own master. I just looked at him. That is all, just looking.
Khalil’s face, dominated by a cruel mouth and a thin beard, softened as he took note of a boy and girl, laughing as they passed by, both of them oblivious with the shine of youth. They were clearly brother and sister, both tall for their age, confident, striding as if they owned the earth under their feet, and all around them. He looked at the girl, and then felt his eyes pulled painfully to the beauty of the boy, who glanced at him without recognition and then turned to ask his sister a question. The molten heat of shame rose along his face, down to his groin, and finally came to rest at his fingers, quivering with the urge to touch that which he could not have.
God help me, it is not the fact that he is a boy. It is his perfection, his youth.
He sat rigidly still, as if he could fade into the background of the park, alone with his need and his shame. When his eyes could go no further, he turned his head slightly to steal one last glance at the pair, lingering for a lewd moment on the boy’s hair, wild and free. He began to rise from the bench, pulled by an inexorable desire that bathed him in hatred and then cooled him in the touch of remembrance at past deeds, so satisfying but so poisonous. Before he could stand, he sensed a presence watching him, and it reached to his hindbrain as both threat and reward.
“Such perfection, and yet they seem to be completely unaware of it. God does render such irresistible creations, don’t you think?” His visitor’s voice was like cool water over stones, conversational, flat, with a bubbling hint of mirth somewhere beneath it.
Startled, Khalil realized that a woman, a very confident, beautiful woman with dark hair and gold-spangled eyes of caramel had somehow approached him, silently, and now sat so close to him that he could smell her perfume. He remained quietly wary, fearful, and unnerved by her approach, although the sentence she spoke was far more disturbing, because his instinct told him those few words were only the beginning. Khalil remained silent, thought about it, made as if to speak, and then found himself brushed with the first whisper of anger at her intrusion, and even more so, at her revelation of his secrets.
“Move along. I do not wish for you to speak to me, and if you do not leave, I will—” he began with as much steel as he could muster under her gaze, only to see the air quivering around her as it might on a roadway at the height of summer, and then the woman sitting next to him was no longer a woman at all, but the perfect image of the girl who had walked by moments earlier.
“Perhaps this will make me welcome in your presence, Khalil?” Her question was voiced innocently, in the cheery tone of a girl bridgin
g the spaces between child and woman. Khalil gawked openly at her as she cocked her head at him with a gaze like a predatory bird, unblinking and totally focused. Another flash of heat and the girl was gone, replaced by her brother, who asked him “Or maybe me? If that is more to your liking.” The boy raised a hand to his hair and flipped it from his eyes with practiced ease, letting his hand rest on Khalil’s leg in a touch that was toxic with possibility.
I must leave this place. This is not real. No one can know. I must leave. I must. Before Khalil could enact his harried scramble away from demons that were far too close to his most closely guarded shame, another wave of heat disturbed the air, and then the brunette woman sat next to him again, placidly watching his face for something he could not fathom.
“Tell me, Khalil, how soon do you think you will take the final step here, indulging yourself in those delicious moments that fill your heart with dread and relief and your mouth with bitterness of giving yourself over to sin?” Her eyes never left his as she spoke. He felt pinned, even in this open place.
“I have never—I do not . . .” he began weakly, only to have her interrupt him with a short laugh as brittle as glass.
“Please, Khalil. You are here because of what you did there. Do not be patronizing to the one person who understands your desires—and can fulfill them, for a service.” She sat back slightly on the bench and began studying a column of ants racing to a fallen grasshopper. One of the unfortunate insect’s bowlike legs kicked weakly as the ants surged over the larger, but now hapless creature and began to sting it to death.
“What, what service? Here?” he asked, beginning to assemble some thought of whether he could actually survive the granting of his dark wishes. He knew better than to overestimate his constitution or his capacity for ameliorating the stains on his soul. ”What are you?” His voice bordered on panic, cracking with each word from a voice that sounded to him like a dead man speaking from the grave.
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