The angel rocked from side to side, as if staggered by Max’s words. “What do you know of my Lord? His burdens, His trials? He is Lord of all Creation, the Maker of Life. He made me, and you, and all the women you killed.”
“He made the men and women you killed, as well.”
“Do not presume to judge me, murderer. My Lord is my only judge.”
“Then he should have been the one to judge me.”
“He has turned his Might on the Chaos that assaults His Order. He battles the Other, and cannot spare—”
“Your Lord has abandoned you.”
“You do not understand, sinner. You cannot understand.”
Max shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kueur crawling toward the end of the couch. “You upset the order you claim to protect,” he said. He held up his hand. “This is my instrument. It does not act on its own. You did not judge this piece of flesh and bone. You chose the soul that empowered the flesh to receive your punishment. That is the order of things in your Creation, is it not? The mind, the will, the soul, drives the flesh. Your Lord would never punish the instruments of mortal sin. He would never destroy a gun, or a knife, or a bomb, in place of their users. The instruments do not act on their own. And yet you do. You, an angel of destruction, one of your Lord’s tools for punishment, presumes to act. Will I judge your Maker by what you have done? Will your Maker punish himself because of your reckless killing, the pain and suffering you have caused?”
“What do you know of Heaven? What do you know of the duties and responsibilities of its tenants?”
“I know there are no other angels of destruction seeking me out. I know angels of destruction are not rampaging across the world punishing all the other evil men and women who live with me next to all the weak and the innocent. I know your Lord has not judged me, for whatever reason he has deemed fit. And so I know that you have taken on more than your Lord intended. You are the evil one here, Enoch. You are the one who presumes to change the Order your Lord has created.”
The seraphim reared, one arm flailing wildly, the other reaching for Max. “Abomination,” Enoch screeched.
A hissing sound came from behind Max, and he turned. Kueur was draped over the end of the couch. She met his gaze, and he saw the dull flickering of life in her eyes. She pressed a button on the remote triggering device in her hand.
A bomb, he thought. No. What have they done? Destroy us all, that is not the way, not what I wanted
A tower of flame rose up from the planter next to the couch, next to the angel. The planter’s ficus tree was a black skeleton sheathed in fiery flesh.
The angel rolled away, shielded its eyes. “My Lord,” it said in a hushed voice. “You have returned.”
Fire crackled.
“My Lord, have you come to bear witness to my work? Have you come to bless my labor?” Fire whipped through the air, almost touching Dex’s ravaged body.
“My Lord, speak to me. What is Your Will? Do you wish to pass Your Judgment on this soul beyond redemption?”
Fire receded, smokeless, until it was a thin rod of flame hugging its wooden frame.
“My Lord, please, I cannot bear this silence. Speak to me. Let me hear Your Voice once again. Let me feel the touch of Your Glory. Let my faith be renewed by Holy Presence.”
The fire burned evenly, silently.
“I think your Lord has come to judge you, Enoch,” Max said.
“No, He has come for you!”
“I’ve been here for quite some time, Enoch. You’re the newcomer.”
“No, my Lord! Tell him. Let him see the Truth of Your Divinity. Show him, my Lord.”
The fire did not flicker.
“No, my Lord! Do not forsake me!”
“He hasn’t forsaken you, Enoch. He’s come to take you away.”
“No! Please, my Lord! Do not protect this abomination! The souls of those he murdered cry out for his punishment. I hear them. Their agony fills the emptiness where once You dwelled, my Lord. They wait for him. They wait for You to send him to them. I only seek to help, to do what You shou—must do to satisfy the desire for vengeance that troubles those wronged souls, so they may one day come into Your Light!”
The seraphim threw himself at the couch, but his hand only managed to brush Max’s foot. Max drew his leg back. He turned to catch a glimpse of his son before the angel closed with him, knowing even if he managed to destroy Dex’s body, Enoch had many more to choose from. The Beast filled him, willing, eager to surrender itself to a final orgy of killing.
A cry split the air. Mrs. Chan held up a squirming, bawling lump of bloody flesh. She put herself between Max and the angel, leaning on her cane while cradling the infant in her other arm.
“Would you kill this one to render your judgment?” she asked.
Chubby legs kicking, the baby wailed.
The angel drew his good arm back as if it had been touched by hellfire. “My Lord, you have come again!” The darkness in Dex’s eye sockets thinned, as if its essence were draining through a secret hole at the back of Dex’s skull. “No, my Lord. Not from this one! How could You have chosen this, this thing through which to manifest yourself?”
Mrs. Chan took the boy in both her hands and thrust him toward the angel. Max wanted to haul her back, but could not reach her.
“Now you come? Now you answer my prayers? Now you break what is left of my heart?” Tears of starless night dripped from the Dex’s angel-filled eyes. It balled its hand into a fist. Stared at the baby. Turned away. “I am not Judas, or even Peter. I am not one of the Pharisees. I cannot bring harm to the Lord again!”
Dex’s body settled as the seraphim withdrew from its material house. The black pools vanished, revealing the two raw holes in bone. Silence smothered the loft.
Mrs. Chan prodded Dex’s body with the cane, then offered the baby to Max. He took the child, stared in wonder at the pinched face, the blind eyes and round, open mouth. Holding the baby awkwardly against his chest, he offered one of his thick fingers to the baby’s clutching hands. He looked over at Kueur, who smiled as she fingered the remote device. The fire in the planter went out.
The flicker of candlelight stroked Max’s weariness. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the candles had burned out. He was lying on his back on the couch, his head in Alioune’s lap, his feet in Kueur’s lap. Mrs. Chan walked back and forth in front of him, nursing the baby. He closed his eyes again, opening them moments later, and found himself holding the baby. Mrs. Chan was framed in the doorway to the loft, absently spinning her cane. At last he gave himself to sleep, where he found no dreams or pain.
“So how did you know fire would be the key?” Max asked Kueur as they watched Alioune sitting between them on the couch, humming to the baby.
“We didn’t,” Kueur said, playing with the baby’s hands. “But when we heard the demon pursuing you was an angel, we remembered the missionary’s lessons, the Old Book’s burning bushes. Of course, we’ve seen the desert’s flaming gas vents during our traveling days. So we took some of your supplies, pieced together a device that would give us a decent flame, put it in the planter. We hoped for a moment’s diversion during a fight, something to give us the room for a death blow.”
“But if Enoch fled,” Alioune said, “where can it hide?”
“Where all angels go when they’ve fallen,” answered Max.
The blood of killers moved the last of the black plastic body bags out of the loft. The killer carrying the clipboard stopped in front of Max. “Busy night, sir?” he said with a smile.
Max waved him away, but the killer sank into a crouch.
“A van is waiting for your party downstairs, sir. I understand there were parties killed here connected to forces who will hold you responsible for their deaths. Arrangements have been made for your safety, until you can negotiate a settlement.”
“Mr. Tung’s and Mr. Johnson’s—” Alioune began.
“I understand,” said Max. “Yo
ur idea saved our lives.” He reached over to the ficus, rubbed one of its a waxy leaves between his fingers. “Did your people replace this tree?” he asked the supervisor.
“No. We only have time for wet cleaning.”
“I see.” The gentle hands of the blood of killers helped him to stand and supported him as he walked toward the door. In a crevice between thought and action, the Beast sulked, worrying at the invisible feathers of escaped prey.
Alioiune gave Max the baby, then sagged into the arms of her helpers. “We must stop at a few stores in Chinatown,” she said. “Before she left, Mrs. Chan told us what we needed to get for the baby.”
“Not a problem,” said the man with the clipboard. “And may I say what an honor it is to perform this service for you and your family. May I ask the name of your latest addition?”
Kueur stopped short. “Tonton?”
Max exchanged a look of despair and horror with the twins. In all that had happened, none of them had given a thought to naming the child.
Max resisted the pull of his handlers. He searched the ruined loft for a clue, something to offer the blood. He had a terrible premonition that if the child left his birthplace unnamed, he would not survive his first night. Then he relaxed and gave the twins a forlorn smile.
“We’ve named him in honor of those we’ve lost,” he said. “Wulumu Bearpaw Chaudhri Mad Owl Pullman Ashes Blowing Shenara Child of Thunder.”
“But we’ll call him—” Kueur began.
“Not Dex,” Max said.
“Max?” Kueur finished.
“Feu?” asked Alioune.
“No, not fire,” Max said. “Angel.”
The twins nodded their heads and smiled, and all three were carried away, surrounded by the reverent murmuring of the blood of killers.
SPECIAL BONUS: A BRAND NEW MAX STORY
Tree of Shadows
By Gerard Houarner
The single knock on the door fell into the depths of Max’s meditation.
The rap of a knuckle on steel fell through the driving rhythms and blaring instruments of big band salsa blasting from the apartments below and above him, the traffic noise on 10th Street and Avenue B, and the din from Tompkins Square Park. The sound should have been lost like a drop rain over a hurricane sea. The Beast, slumbering in memories of carnage, did not stir as the sound passed it. Max, following Mrs. Chan’s directions, inhabited the silence deep inside himself. He stood where the Beast slept, in an emptiness, almost forgetting himself, the world, his appetite, his rage. Almost. In the silence, he heard the sound, like a dust mote landing on a still pond’s surface.
If the Beast had been awake, Max would have missed it the sound, as well.
The sound did not belong in the storm of life and death in the city’s heart . It was a sign. An intrusion.
A warning.
He’d have to thank Mrs. Chan for the training. Perhaps even tell him how meditation had helped him kill.
He hadn’t killed, yet, this hour. But the hour wasn’t done.
Mrs. Chan would be hurt. Max found satisfaction in that possibility. Pleasure, in that power he had over Mrs. Chan. Sometimes, the power to simply kill someone else was not enough.
Max waited for the rest of the sign. The emptiness inside his mind began to fill. Someone had put on thrashing bass and guitar music to try drowning out the salsa. The screech of song reverberated in Max, familiar and comforting, though the salsa’s rhythmic drumming brought him back to purer versions he’d heard in Cuba while stalking gloomy Havana alleys. The taste of different flavors of pain came back to him. His fingers closed reflexively. The Beast shuddered, catching the flicker of his memories in its dreams.
The careful balance he’d struggled to maintain crumbled under the strain of anticipating danger. The world, and his world, broke through the walls he’d built to keep them out. His past, his appetites, his needs and rage, were all too much to be held back for long. And the world outside of him, it was too rich in pleasures to be ignored for long.
He had to answer the knock. Mrs. Chan slipped from consciousness, leaving only a nagging sense that there were discoveries yet to be made in the disciplines of the mind. Something about killing, but on the inside, not in the world of flesh and blood.
The thought blew away. Max was back in his lower east side apartment, Alphabet City, grimy windows overlooking a perpetual theater of the cruel and the absurd, paint peeling from cracked walls hiding the scurry of roaches and mice, floor slanted, the smell of mold and roasting meat and backed-up toilet mingling to create an aroma that told him prey was all around him, careless, distracted, waiting to be caught and devoured.
Max moved, scanning for peepholes, listening for the breath of enemies, the sound of desperately fleeing footsteps.
He opened the front door. He hadn’t bothered to reach for the Glock tucked behind the waistband of his trousers. The hallway was empty, except for trash, broken furniture, and the thick, round, red candle burning on a plate at his feet.
The plume of smoke tickled his nose with the scent of blood, metallic, rusting and corroded like the iron and copper pipes that hadn’t yet been stripped out of apartment building.
The Beast twitched, its dreams made real by the blood candle.
Max went down on one knee, snuffed the flame. The door to the apartment further down on the left opened. He knew only the young men and women who came in and out of the place, brothers and sisters of varying ages, but he’d suspected the old woman who poked her head out was living there. White hair, narrow eyes, frock half-opened to reveal withered breasts and a shaven slit, the old woman hugged the far side of the hallway as she approached.
“Did you see who left this?” Max asked.
“¿Me puede dar esto?”
Max didn’t answer. The old woman, a grandmother by the smell of her, snatched the candle and raced back inside the apartment. An old bruja had uses for blood, old and new, preserved in all kinds of way. An old bruja had nothing to lose taking what she needed.
He liked the old woman. The smell of her provoked the Beast to snort and growl. It liked her, too, and its dreams made Max’s cock hard.
Max turned back into the apartment. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water over his head. The face in the mirror didn’t interest him. From his closet, he picked clean jeans and a charcoal top, black construction boots, a leather jacket. He kept the Glock, collected clips and a suppressor. He wasn’t sure what the work would require, added a single and a double-edged knife. There was always hope a sign could be returned.
He looked forward to the hunt.
The door to the apartment closed with a hollow echo behind him as he left. Aside from a table, chair, and a cot, there was no furniture in the place. Only one closet held his clothes. The kitchen was bare. What he valued most, the tools of his profession and his pleasure, remained hidden inside where they’d never be found or in safe drops. He’d already stayed longer than he usually did in any one place. Six months. The renovations to the loft he’d bought downtown would take another 6 months. No one ever came to visit, no business or recreation was ever conducted in the place. Not even his adopted nieces, Kueur and Alioune, were allowed to pass by when travelling on break from their Paris boarding school.
It was an empty space, so much like what Mrs. Chan claimed might be created inside Max to cage and tame the Beast just a little, for the sake of his adopted nieces, and for the good of its own terrible nature in a world that held no place for it.
Things would change when he could operate from a secure and private space. He’d be truly settled, with a home to offer the two girls who’d changed his life. His employers, perhaps even his enemies, would find him more easily. It was a new life he was preparing to squeeze into, with strange practices and habits that didn’t fit the life he’d made for himself since escaping his Calcutta childhood. Responsibilities. Commitments.
The air in the hallway seemed thick with smoke from the blood candle. It choked him a little
, sticking in his throat, clogging his lungs.
The hollow echo of the door’s closing reassured Max. It told him, now as it had throughout his life, that he’d left nothing of value behind. He carried everything he needed with him, all the time. His hunger, his Beast. And it promised he’d come back to nothing, to an emptiness as certain as any another den he might have made for himself.
It promised there’d be no prison to capture his Beast, or frustrate his appetites.
Even if the promise was a lie.
On the street, the cool dusk air cleared the smoke from his lungs, the doubts from his mind. The Beast opened one of its secret eyes. The hunt was underway.
He went to the park first. In the intermingling of predator and prey, he might pick up the scent of whoever had left him the message, or flush out the messenger. Or perhaps draw another warning sign. Someone wanted his attention, so here he was.
The drug dealers at the park’s perimeter knew him and let him through without asking what he needed. Someone called out “Policia,” a few nervous looks were cast his way. Someone laughed. He sat a bench and checked his trail. People sat by their windows in the surrounding buildings, calling out and conversing with people on the street, listening to the music, watching, waiting for something to happen.
An older, white-haired man in black stepped out of a entry, held the door open, watched children playing and running back and forth.
Hunting. But not for him.
His attention passed to the park’s inhabitants and visitors. He recognized the local dealers, addicts, crazies, prostitutes, loan sharks, skinheads, pimps, homeless, bookies, street artists and musicians, vendors of everything from bootleg videos and tapes to stolen electronics, and the rest of the city’s detritus cast out of their steel, concrete and brick shelters. Some familiar faces had dropped away, new people had drifted in to take their place. Sometimes, he and the Beast culled the herd, or tracked others who did it and took them. He checked the newcomers. There were a few drummers fresh off the plan from Puerto Rico, joining the regulars for a taste of home and to audition for bands, and dozens of kids, coming in from Jersey or Long Island to slum or score. Clusters of tourists and even a tour group from Japan threaded their way through shacks, tents and cardboard boxes, surrounded by beggars. A new crop of AIDS patients waited for the finality so many others in the park denied. A newspaper man was buying interviews, and an NYU film student crew was trying to catch an atmospheric apocalyptic shot in the day’s last light accented by the cooking fires and their smoke.
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