Bad news, friend. Everything in his body language screamed the unspoken before his hand ever hit the door handle, and I stood mute, waiting for him to unfold his long legs and walk the few steps to me.
“Who is it?” I asked, dreading his answer. He looked over my shoulder, and I turned to see Wally standing in the doorway, and then Risa behind her an instant later. They knew. We all knew, so with a heavy step, I walked wordlessly to my partners where we would all receive the bad news together.
“Care to sit down?” I asked, but Kevin demurred, remaining standing in the kitchen while Risa and Wally took up stations at the table. I stood between them, and Kevin reached into his pocket without fanfare and pulled out a plain white envelope.
“Delphine came to see me three weeks ago. She swore me to secrecy, or I would have informed you of her visit.” His conflict over this imagined betrayal was palpable, but Wally put him at ease by standing and putting her hand on his arm.
“We know you do not tell lies, Father. Why did she come to you? Do you know?” Wally both consoled and interrogated him in the fashion only she was capable of.
“I do not, but I can tell you, she was scared and she seemed sad. Wistful at first, but then, when she handed me this envelope, she just seemed scared, as if she was reaching some sort of conclusion. She extracted a promise of silence from me and a second request, as well.” Kevin’s voice was strained; I could tell he was worried about something unknown.
Risa asked softly, “What was the second favor?”
“That I allow her to come to confession once a week, and that if she failed to appear, I deliver this to you.” He held out the envelope to Wally and rubbed his temples. “She was undergoing a catharsis of incredible proportions. She would speak for a an hour, uninterrupted, about the condition of her soul and what she could possibly do to save herself, but she was also fearful that if she was not diligent in the pursuit of this . . . purification, she might lose her life and be lost, in turn, forever.” Tears glimmered in his eyes. I could tell the man had invested in this strange woman from the depths of time, and he believed that something ill had befallen her. At Risa’s expression of inquiry, he concluded, “Our scheduled meeting was this morning, and within one minute of her being late, I knew. I just knew.” He sagged slightly, folding in war don himself with the intuition of a man who has been around people who suffered every indignity under the sun. Priests are like the police. They see people at their very worst and yet, they still perform their chosen duty. I admired that dedication even as I loathed the conditions that necessitated having that caliber of person around.
“I’m sorry, Kevin.” My offering sounded weak even in my own ears, but he graciously gave me a thin smile of acceptance.
Wally handed the letter to Risa and instructed her, “You read English faster, so your turn.” Unfolding the single page, Risa’s brow furrowed for a quizzical instant, and she began to speak.
Dear Friends,
I hope that greeting isn’t presumptuous of me since the fact that you care enough to read this indicates our relationship has warmed to some degree. I debated vigorously with my own conscience about whether I had the courage to write a missive or an epistle, or could I simply plumb the resources of what you must think is my paper-thin soul and tell you plainly, even in death, I am proud to have known you all.
I have lived what may seem an incomprehensible, violent, and lengthy walk across the ages, and without seeming ungrateful, I can state that I will regret being gone, regardless of how many centuries I have stolen from the fates. I pray (yes, I pray, and often, so cease your mockery, Waleska!) that your collective existence will become more stable and less rife with upheaval as time wears on, although I think we all know that this is mere fantasy now that Elizabeth is at your door.
She is my creator, and thus has an advantage over me that I cannot control, as her age and experience will grant her, however slight, a near permanent position of superiority which she can exploit to turn my wishes aside, no matter how well-crafted and pure those plans might be. She is, as I am sure you suspect, among the oldest of the Undying to ever walk the lands, but even Elizabeth, as she calls herself these past five centuries, is not without threats. Powerful enemies capable of doing her grievous harm exist here and now, and they will respond to that which they know and crave— revenge, opportunity, and a respect of similar strength are among the qualities that strike chords in their dark, ancient hearts.
I know of a single word that can rally their hate to your cause, but I will not write it here, for fear that, if stolen, the information will be used to cause greater sadness, more pain, and a widening of the war for mankind that has been fought all these centuries. Whether you realize it yet, you are entrenched in that conflict, and only victory or death will free the three of you to live as you wish, drunk on the sun and waves and each other.
So, Ring will need to go somewhere that Risa and Waleska cannot follow. To do so would be fatal, although they may be close by and able to render aid, albeit limited, to counteract certain effects that are part of discovering something that we— and the world— will need to send Elizabeth anywhere but here. She is too lethal and too inhuman to be allowed to continue her ascent, and I have known for some time that the three of you are the hammer to break her rise towards the crown of Hell.
I have found over the centuries that I deluded myself into thinking I existed without regret, but this dream lasted only briefly. The tides of memory fled from the shore of my history to bare the muddy, stinking reality of my sins. Those same sins returned as a crashing wave, foaming with the myriad of thoughtless, casual violence I visited upon men and women and the families they would never see again.
No more. I am gone, but that does not mean that my awakening must die with me. Go to the one place you all fear Ring wants to be and find the truth behind my mask. And then, appeal to her greatest weakness and kill her. Kill Elizabeth and free this world from an evil that will burn everything around you to ashes.
Andiarka
59
The Archangel Kyle
Ripe. The entirety of the house had a rich, decaying scent with layers of stale alcohol, sweat, and greasy food containers. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose in disgust, and then the hint of a smile pulled at the corners of her lips as she inhaled again, as if verifying that the living space was indeed corrupted by the smell of depression and loss. She stalked across the carpet to the master bedroom, hearing drifting notes from the cheap guitar she left behind nearly a month earlier. Rounding through the open door, Kyle greeted her, cross-legged on the edge of the bed, unshaven, bleary-eyed but awake and apparently sober enough to play.
He coughed roughly and grunted, “The liquor ran out three days ago, but your guy brought me coffee and some pills. I feel a helluva lot better than I did.” She approached the bed and knelt graciously before him, care on her face as she examined his shattered appearance.
“I heard you playing. It was beautiful.” The lie was effortless. A flush crossed his chest and he coughed again, but tried to contain it as if suddenly aware of how downtrodden he looked. Ah, shame. Always such a good ally, Elizabeth mused, bathing in the magnificence of his decrepit existence. “Would you play it for me? Please?” Her smile was pleadingly honest. He dipped his head as the blush spread to his face, and then he picked up the guitar again.
“It’s pretty rough, but I guess . . .” Trailing off, he began to strum a chord progression that was odd and too erratic to be enjoyable. It was a mirror of the chaos from his last few weeks and years, and Elizabeth found it fitting. To Kyle’s amazement, she wove her fingers in a complicated pattern, put knuckles to her lips, and whistled a long, soulful tune along with his chords. He nearly stopped playing at the sight of her doing something so pedestrian and so emotional. It made her look girlish, and that was somehow wrong. But the music she made, low hooting and whistling, would have been at place on the hunt for a mammoth or in a cave with flickering tallow lamps and animal outlines danci
ng on the walls. The noise was haunting, an ache that hummed in the base of his jaw and made tears well up in his eyes. Bittersweet and awkward, the sounds hung in the air like an unreturned declaration of love. A long beat later, it faded, and he was left to stare at her as she smiled at him with the smallest hint of embarrassment at her previously hidden ability. After fastidiously wiping a crescent of lipstick from her hand, she let her hands fall politely onto her skirt and grew still again.
“I don’t like to be an egotist.” She was the picture of a demure maiden, and she knelt again before him, closer now, and he set the forgotten guitar to the side. From under her lashes, she gave him an open, inquisitive smile. “Do you want to know how to do that? Make music like that?” Kyle nodded vigorously, seeing her gift as something pure and worth learning.
“That was so enticing; it was like you were using words. I could feel them in my head. I would love to know that. What do I have to do?” Interest lit his bloodshot eyes from within. It seemed that humanity was not entirely gone from his heart.
In answer, Elizabeth held up a phone and hit record. “Play those chords again, but slower.” Kyle began to strum again, at a slower speed. The pace made his music even less palatable, and when he finished, she rewarded him with a brilliant smile and a kiss on the cheek. His hand went to the spot where her lips touched his sallow skin, and wonder broke across his face from contact with her mouth.
“Show me?” he inquired simply. Still kneeling before him, she gently placed his hands together and turned his wrists so his palms were crossed. Bending his fingertips lightly in a hooked motion, she then slid his thumbs until they were even with each other and nodded in satisfaction.
“You’re almost there; your hands are nearly perfect for the old music.” A small frown furrowed her brow, and she hesitated.
Kyle stuck his hands out further and asked, “Can I make those sounds now? Or do you have to fix them?” His earnestness was childlike, and Elizabeth’s lips curled again. The tip of her tongue peeked from her lips as she concentrated and covered as much of his hands as she could with her refined, delicate fingers.
Her grip tightened instantly as heat boiled from her skin, a molten bolt of pain that made Kyle gasp in horror as he tried to pull away, but Elizabeth merely smiled and said, as he began to scream, “Clay can be molded, but one needs fire to make the shape just so.” Under her demonic hold, his fingers lengthened and thinned, and flakes of charred skin sloughed off as he bellowed like a wounded animal, and then as suddenly as it started, she removed her fingers from his and stood. Silence buzzed in the room as wafting smoke from Kyle’s ruined hands was carried away by the air conditioning. He slumped to his side, whimpering as his feet thrashed lightly, kicking in a rhythm to his pulse which sent shards of agony through his nerves with each merciless thump. Elizabeth inspected her work and gave a satisfied mmm-hmm, then stood to the side quickly as Kyle pitched forward to the floor. His hands were monstrosities. Wiry, charred, and with extra joints, his fingers still sizzled in protest from her attentions, and through gritted teeth, he begged her to stop the fire. Anything to stop the pain, he offered, again and again.
Elizabeth frowned anew. “Did I not seconds ago give you the hands you needed to fulfill your wish, and now here we are faced with yet another demand from me? Your selfishness is really quite boorish, Kyle. It’s no wonder your sister killed herself, if only to be away from such manners.” She checked her lipstick with a long look into her compact and then tucked it into a small clutch. Her lips curled in distaste as she tapped his writhing form with her pointed shoe.
“You really must be still for me to cool you down. I can’t work miracles, you know.” Nonplussed by Kyle’s display, her tone remained one of bored indifference woven with perturbation. After long moments of agony in which Kyle struggled to stay conscious, Elizabeth knelt for the last time, and roughly turned Kyle’s face to her.
“Look at me, boy.” The kindness, humanity, and even petulance were gone from her words now. She was malignantly beautiful as her mouth slowly pulled into a cupid’s bow, and she blew softly on her index finger. With an ugly crackling, the nail lengthened, and hoarfrost coated the digit, sending drifting crystalline motes to fall towards Kyle’s face. One hit his lip, and upon impact the spot turned a poisonous black. He coughed, a bloody, rattling thing, and Elizabeth brought the three-inch nail closer to him.
“I have your song, Kyle, and it will live much longer than you. Take solace in that.” A merciless smile burst from her lips, and she drove the nail into Kyle’s eye, humming his chords as her finger came to a delicate rest when his feet stopped moving. A single tear fell from his remaining eye, only to dry on his neck in a powdery white streak. It was his last physical declaration, but his mind lived on for a solitary thought. Lara, I am so sorry I left you with this monster. Please, forgive me. And then, with a last ragged breath, he was gone.
60
Florida
“The place we fear Ring wants to be?” Risa pondered aloud after finishing Delphine’s letter for a second time. Kevin shrugged, Wally looked confused, then confident, and then confused again. I was mystified by the riddle and remained deep in thought.
Wally groused, “I don’t like it when he leaves, but I always know he is coming back. Where would he go for good, if not here?”
“Yes,” Risa agreed, processing something, “but not when Ring leaves. If Ring left us, where would he go—wait, don’t answer that. Where could Ring go that would make you the most angry, Wally?” She smiled slyly, enjoying her thought path as she led Wally to some unseen logical conclusion. I couldn’t stand that Risa was so much more devious than both of us, and Kevin, who was completely out of the loop in this one, but I appreciated her results. “We were madder than hell about it, but it couldn’t be avoided.”
“It was Delphine but,” Wally hesitated, “I knew he had to be around her. We needed her. We needed information.”
“Of course,” Risa agreed amiably. “But we didn’t want him to stay. And I don’t think he wanted to stay either, or at least that better be your answer if you want to see the sunrise, buddy.” She gave me a wintry smile that was only half-joking, and I saluted in place. Kevin winked at me, knowing I had averted a minor pitfall and proving that just because he wasn’t married didn’t mean he couldn’t be savvy about women. Risa sidled up to me and poked me in the shoulder.
“The first time you shagged our succubus friend, I was irked.” Risa began ticking points off slowly. “The second time, it became laughable because of how transparent she was in her efforts, but underlying all of that, Wally and I both agreed that it was the possibility you would prefer her company that really bothered us. It was the intimacy, not the sex.”
“I never even shared her bed, Risa, so I don’t know how you could say we were more than physically familiar. I don’t even know what her bedroom looks like.” I was adamant. I wasn’t going down that road again, and it wouldn’t help anything in the here and now.
“Her bed? That would be very familiar, I think. Your place is here, not her bed. That is her . . . it is the place that some men have never come back from, yes? So I do not think I would want you to visit there because you might never leave.” Wally’s voice was stony.
Risa explained, “Wally, anywhere Ring can go, we can go. Except for that very place. Delphine’s bed isn’t a decision we can undo or a mindset; it’s a thing, a very real location, and it is surrounded by magic that will kill women and render men wishing they were dead, according to her own words.”
“Oh.” Wally’s small utterance was tinged with anger as she processed the implications of why Delphine kept her secrets, whatever they might be, in her private bedchamber. Everyone looked a bit grey when they considered what I would have to do. I wasn’t an immortal, but our augmentations made it more likely I could fight my way through a lifetime of ghosts to get to the middle of a place that could kill nearly anyone. I felt a decidedly cold chill race up my spine at the thought of what wa
s waiting for me and decided that, if I could survive, it would be worth the pain. Risa put a sympathetic hand on me and wordlessly moved in to lean against my side, while Wally’s frown only deepened. She was immobile with her anger, and Kevin cleared his throat in the growing silence.
“This . . . event, which you have to endure. Can you use my assistance? I’d like to be nearby,” Kevin requested, with great dignity. It was the gesture of a man who was searching for a way to contribute to something that was exotic and incomprehensible, and I shook my head gently.
“I—you’re a true friend, Kevin, and to be honest, having you here, closer to the rest of our family, well, it would make me feel as if there is someone looking out for them who can care for their souls, not just their bodies. This whole thing is entering dimensions I hadn’t considered. I have to walk that floor, no one else, but you’re the only person I trust to counsel my friends in the event I don’t come back.” His shoulders fell in acceptance of that reality, and I knew he would do his utmost to fulfill his role. I slapped him affectionately on the back, hoping that the simple gesture would impart just how much I valued who friendship, but I knew it was a think substitute for words I couldn’t say because of my own weakness. The less I thought about this war and this particular cog in our greater problem, the better. Kevin left us with a sad smile, hugged Risa, then Wally, and shook my hand with the gravity of man who has seen loss often enough to know when something bad is coming.
“I’ll be here, whatever you need,” Kevin declared, and then left us to our thoughts. Risa pulled open her laptop and pecked listlessly at keys until her face brightened.
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