by D. N. Hoxa
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed so hard, my bones almost broke.
“Do not say a word,” he whispered.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Not one single word,” he said, looking up every few seconds.
This time, when I looked up, I saw them. Three birds flying with impossible speed towards us.
Eae walked to the other side of the terrace, right in front of the pool, and I followed while I looked at the birds. I knew very well they weren’t birds, but for some stupid reason, I felt better thinking of them that way.
A few seconds later, I couldn’t deny it any longer. Three Angels flew towards us, and it was majestic. Their wings were huge. It looked like they could blow away everything and anything around them with the force of a tornado.
And much too soon they landed in front of us on Eae’s terrace.
One of them, the one in the middle, looked to be in charge. His eyes were blue and his hair as white as his wings. They were similar to Eae’s, though Eae’s had some grey and black on them. He was as tall as Eae, too, but the other two behind him were closer to my height. Their wings were grey and black. Not a single white feather on them and their hair was brown.
“Eae,” the one in charge said. His voice was one of the strangest I’d ever heard. It was terribly similar to the voice of the Devil in my dream.
“Netzach,” Eae said with the slightest nod.
“Your time is up,” Netzach said.
“Are you sure? I was sure I had a few more days…”
Netzach had already taken a step forward and was right in front of Eae.
“Your time is up. No more games.”
“What are you going to do, drag me back to Heaven?”
Eae laughed, but it sounded like it was forced.
“If I have to, you know I will. I’ll take your wings, too.”
Netzach smiled a sickening smile that scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t a coward, but I’d never seen anyone wrapped up in that kind of energy before. It was like he sucked the life force out of you. He made you want to get down on your knees and confess your sins. I casually took a step back, just to make sure.
“You’re going to have to kill me first,” Eae said. The playfulness was gone from his voice completely.
“And I’ll do that, too. Nobody’s going to mind, Eae. They’ll congratulate me,” Netzach said.
I had no idea what any of it meant, but Eae’s shoulders stiffened. It did not look good.
“So I guess you won’t take it well if I told you to get the hell off my property?” Eae said.
Netzach began to laugh, and so did the other two behind him. “Look at you, speaking like a human. You’ve spent too long among them, I keep telling you.”
“Yeah, well, I like to fight the real fight instead of hiding behind the clouds.”
Netzach’s face turned to serious in less than a second.
“What’s it going to be, Eae? You know I’d love to tear the wings you keep hidden off. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
“You’ll never touch my wings while I still breathe,” Eae said. “And like I said, get the hell off my property, Netzach.”
“We’ll see about that,” Netzach said, just as Eae stepped aside. Now, the Angel was right in front of me.
“How rude of me,” Eae said. “Allow me to introduce you to Adrian Ward.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out. Netzach’s eyes were wide as he looked at Eae. Like he couldn’t believe he was seeing me, but I didn’t think I’d ever met him before. There was no chance I’d seen him before. I would have remembered him.
Eae laughed. “Yes, Zach. He’s exactly who you think he is.”
“This is a fucking joke,” Netzach said, pointing at me.
“Nope. As real as you standing here,” Eae said.
“Trying to fool me is beneath even you, Eae. You’re not going to get out of this.”
Another step closer to Eae, and he and Netzach practically touched noses.
“I don’t need to. I have him. He’s my helper.”
“He’s just a kid!” Zach hissed.
“He’s stronger than he looks,” Eae said, and he fisted his hands as if he was getting ready. I had a feeling I didn’t want to witness whatever it was that they were going to do next.
“Strong?” Netzach said, incredulously. “He’ll faint if I look at him!”
He wasn’t that scary, but I really didn’t want to test that theory of his.
“He’s my helper. The deal is made,” Eae said.
“Are you so desperate as to strike a deal with anyone, just to keep living down here, partying all day long? You are an embarrassment to our race,” Netzach hissed.
“I’m not desperate,” Eae said, his voice calm. “I never was. Doesn’t matter what you see, Zach. It matters what is.”
“What’s he going to fight them with, Eae? With his mighty fists? With his looks?” Netzach said, and the two others behind him chuckled.
Eae turned to look at me. He gave a full scan to every inch of my body. My heart pounded, and I was desperate to speak. Say something. Anything. They were talking about me like I wasn’t even there. But something kept stopping me.
“He is stronger than he looks,” Eae repeated.
“Prove it.” Netzach crossed his arms in front of his wide chest.
“I don’t have to prove anything to you,” Eae hissed.
“But indulge me, Eae. If you can.” The words were laced with venom. Eae heard it as well as I did, but that didn’t stop him from turning to me.
He looked murderous. I barely held his eyes. I almost stepped back when he stopped in front of me and looked at me like he willed me to stand as still as I could. I did.
He grabbed my hand, my right hand, and I almost expected to lose consciousness and fall asleep again, like I’d done in the car. But he didn’t put me to sleep. He stepped back and took my hand with him. His thumb was right above the heel of my hand, and he pressed so hard, I thought his thumb was going to come out the other side.
Then he closed his eyes.
The whole world fell silent for a long second.
The feeling started in my gut and spread to my chest like flames. It heated my head until all I saw in front of me was black. As my vision returned, the flames spread to my shoulder, then my arm and hand. They centered around Eae’s thumb, still pressing on my wrist.
My skin crawled. The pain started in my right shoulder. It felt like someone was pulling the skin off my flesh. I looked down and saw what I never, not a million years, thought I’d see. What I never even had the creativity to imagine.
The head of the snake of my tattoo was slowly stretching out of my skin.
I nearly passed out. I don’t know what kept me standing as I watched the head of the snake tear itself off my skin, inch by little inch, from my shoulder and around my arm, to the very end of its body, right where Eae’s thumb was.
A lifetime after, my skin was no longer tattooed with the snake. No. The snake was standing right next to me, hissing like it was really alive.
It was nothing like the one that had saved me from that spider. This one was so big, it almost reached my shoulders. Its skin was completely black and bright blue light surrounded its every scale, as if its insides were made out of it. And its eyes…its eyes were small crystals, and they burned bright blue, too. Its mouth promised it could swallow me whole if it wanted.
It should have been impossible, but I even smelled the ink, exactly as I had that day I’d gotten the tattoo. The snake was there. It was right next to me, and it was looking straight at Netzach.
“His name’s Prae,” Eae said. “And he’s a hungry little snake.”
Netzach looked at him with hatred and disgust for a long minute before he stepped back reluctantly.
“You’re going to fail,” he said through gritted teeth.
“If I do, I’ll come back myself,” Eae said. “For now, I’ll say it one mo
re time.” He took a step forward. “Get the hell off my property.”
Xara
San Francisco.
I’d never been there before, but I always wanted to go. It was better than I imagined it. As the cab drove me to the address Trip gave me, I took as many pictures as I could. Of the streets, the people, the stores. It was very, very hot, and I was covered in sweat, but I didn’t mind. I couldn’t wait to see the ocean.
The cab stopped in front of a large light blue building. The apartment Trip gave me the key to was on the fourteenth floor. My head was still filled with everything I’d seen on the ride there, so much so that when I opened the door and walked in, I didn’t know what to expect.
What I found surprised me. It was just a normal room. A large bed in the middle, kitchen to the left, large windows across, and the smallest bathroom I’d ever seen, right behind the entrance door.
The only strange thing about it was the golden telescope on its tripod placed right in front of the windows.
I dropped my bag on the floor, sat on the bed, and listened to Nora’s voice mails while I waited for Trip to show up.
Nora was freaked out and with reason. I left a message and told her I was fine, and that I’d be home soon. As soon as I could.
Two days ago, I decided that I was going to accept it. Whatever Trip threw at me, I would accept it. Two reasons: one, I owed it to him, and two, I wanted to find my brother at all costs. So I was going to stop acting like a little kid, afraid of things I didn’t even know yet, and think positively. Whatever it was, I was going to do it. I was going to find my brother, and I was going to go back home.
Then I’d have a family. Someone I could really call my own. The way it all looked in my head was perfect. The void I had always had in my chest disappeared completely in my imagination. As soon as I met my brother, I would never be alone again.
When Trip didn’t show up half an hour later, I took a shower.
When Trip didn’t show up after my shower, I started to get bored. I pulled the curtains to the side and did the only thing I could do in that small space. Look through the telescope.
The ocean fascinated me. The sky and the sea were so blue, and when I got enough of it, I started to look around the street.
Swimming pools, all over. Half-naked girls. Amazing, shiny cars. Beautiful buildings all over. An Angel with wings…
I took a step back, my breath caught in my throat. My heart pounded in my chest. I looked around me again, almost sure that Trip would be there. He wasn’t. I looked through the window, but the building was too far away for my eyes to see, though it was right across from me.
A few deep breaths later, I looked through the telescope again.
There he was. The Angel and the boy. His tattoos looked like half a shirt on him. He looked freaked out about something. I tried to work the small wheels on the telescope to zoom in on them. I wanted to see every detail I could. When I finally figured it out, they were standing, looking up at the bright sky.
When three other Angels landed right in front of them, I almost fainted. So many wings!
The two smaller ones had wings of grey, while the bigger one’s wings were white just like his hair, though the Angel I was after had feathers of ash mixed with the whites.
I tried to read his mouth while he spoke to the others, but I got nothing, just the forced smile on his face.
The boy stood a couple of steps behind, looking like he couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on either. Then the ash-winged Angel turned to the boy. He took his hand and held it for a second.
Everything else that happened next had the quality and speed of a dream.
The boy’s tattoo started to move. It was a snake. I saw everything in detail because I’d zoomed in on it. The snake detached itself from the boy’s arm. Drop of ink after drop of ink, it separated itself from his skin like a small tornado of blue light, but I couldn’t see where it stopped. The ash-winged Angel stood in my way. I did see the boy’s arm. Half empty now. The tattoo of the snake on his arm was gone.
My whole body was shaking. I looked at his face. He seemed as shocked by what had happened as I was. The Angel turned around, a big smile on his face.
I waited without air in my lungs for him to move so I could look where the boy was looking—at his right side.
The Angel moved.
I saw it.
The snake had come to life.
It was big and black and blue. It had eyes of light and fangs as big as my middle fingers. Shivers washed over me.
What the hell was that?
“Cool, isn’t it?”
I jumped so hard, I threw the telescope against the window and broke it.
I turned around to see Trip with a huge grin on his face, looking right out the window.
“What the hell!” I shouted. I was still shaking. “Stop creeping up on me like that!”
“I’m sorry, Xara. I couldn’t help it,” he said, amused.
A long second passed in silence while I tried to gather my messy thoughts. Then I looked at the telescope and at the window. I pointed at it, because, for a while, my mouth wouldn’t move to speak.
“What the hell was that?” My voice was but a whisper.
“That’s a tattoo snake come to life,” Trip said.
“I saw that! What is it?”
How was it even possible? That was magic. Trip could say whatever he wanted, but it was fucking magic. I’d seen it with my own eyes.
“Relax, it’s not as bad as it looks.”
Trip stepped closer to me. That’s when I saw a wooden box covered with bright red stones in his hands.
I stepped back. “Trip, what is going on? That…that th-th-thing…it came to life right in front of my eyes! What the hell is this?”
My voice shook and broke more times that I liked to admit, and Trip finally stopped smiling. He left his weird-looking box on the bed, took me by the hands, and sat me down next to him.
“You’re freaking out, and that’s normal. But I promise you, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Trip said, pushing my hair away from my face.
“It looks really bad.” A snake with eyes made of light. It was more than bad.
“I know it does.” Trip kissed my forehead before he hugged me to him.
I rested my head on his shoulder and ordered myself to calm down. I was fine. Trip was there. Whatever that was, it was far away from me. I would probably never see it. Now more than ever, I needed a clear head.
“Please tell me what’s going on,” I whispered against his blue shirt.
He caressed my hair for a long time without speaking—like he used to do when I was a teenager. When he did speak, I lost it again.
“You’re going to kill that boy.”
I jumped to my feet, and looked at him like he was crazy. Because he was crazy. Completely insane.
“Kill?”
“Yes, just like I taught you.”
“You taught me how to fight!”
Trip only shrugged, like he couldn’t have cared less. “Same thing. You fight. You kill. Easy peasy.”
“Have you completely lost your mind?” I hissed.
“No, but you seem to have lost it,” Trip said and stood up. He put his hands around my shoulders. “Xara, you need to breathe. Relax.”
“I can’t breathe and relax. You’re telling me to kill someone!”
How could he even look so cool about it? Who was he?
“You want to see your brother, don’t you?”
My mouth opened and closed too many times before I could say a word. “Of course I do.”
“Well, then,” he said, smiling, and let me go. “If you kill Adrian Ward, you’re going to get your brother. As simple as that.”
I turned my back on him, because I couldn’t keep looking at his face, the face of the man who held my hand and bought me ice cream—looking like that. Like he was actually amused by the fact that I had to kill another human being.
“Things like t
his are never easy, Xara.”
“I don’t care!” I shouted. “I’m not going to kill anyone!”
He simply appeared in front of me before the words even left my mouth. Out of thin air. I was surprised I was still standing after everything.
“Remember who you’re talking to, Xara. I was the one who took you off the streets and gave you the life you have. You had everything because of me!” His eyes turned so dark, I felt like I could lose myself in them. “All you have to do for all of it is this one thing.”
“But-but-but…”
My tongue was tied. I couldn’t seem to speak without stuttering. Trip was scaring me more than I’d ever been scared before.
“All you have to do is kill him, and you can be on your way. With your brother,” Trip said. He was back to his old self again, but I couldn’t see him any other way than he was a few seconds ago. I didn’t think I ever would again.
“You can’t ask that of me.”
His hand touched my chin, and he pulled my face up to look at him.
“I’m not asking.” His bright grin hurt my eyes.
“Trip, no,” I breathed. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t! He has a snake with eyes made of light!”
I’d seen it, and I was pretty sure he’d seen it, too, though I had no idea how.
“Yes,” Trip said, and flinched. “That was rather unexpected, but definitely cool.”
“I can’t fight a snake,” I hissed.
This wasn’t the deal. None of it was even close to what I thought I would have to do. I went as far as robbing someone in my head, but never even thought about murder.
“You probably won’t have to. You’ll just fight the boy,” Trip said, and he went to the box he’d left on the bed. “And if you do need to fight the snake, you’ll use this.”
He brought the box in front of me and opened it. On the dark red, velvet pillow inside was some sort of a golden shaft no bigger than my hand. On both ends, it had small balls made out of strings of gold, like a lotus, and two prongs with small, bright red crystals on the top came out of each of them.
“This is a vajra,” Trip said. “Of course, it’s modified, but very close to the original one. Go ahead, grab it.”