Color of Angels' Souls

by Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian

  Caligula intensified his efforts, pelting her with wave after wave of power, but Allison took each burst as it came. Flint stood by, arms crossed, keeping careful watch over the girl. He had almost thought that he would lose her forever, which pained him much more than he cared to admit. That her mind would break under the pressure and she would go mad. But the kid had held on.

  Now she stood before them. Tall. Proud. Disdainful.

  Red.

  Magnificent. Flint’s mouth went dry just looking at her.

  She looked Caligula right in the eyes and stretched languorously, like a waking goddess, perfectly aware that her body was superb. And that it was now her best weapon. Shy little Allison was a thing of the past. The stupid virgin as well. She tilted her head to one side, gave him a maddeningly provocative look, and yelled out: “Go ahead big fella, give me everything you’ve got!”

  Caligula scowled angrily at her and growled under his breath, while Flint held his breath. Allison had no idea what she was doing; the emperor could crush her like a fly with a flick of his wrist.

  But the hideous fiend hadn’t created such a pretty little Red in order to annihilate her. No, he had seen the way Flint kept looking at the girl.

  Flint who had never shown any particular interest in women before.

  Flint who only lived for his cause.

  Caligula realized that he would now be able torment the old Angel to his heart’s content. In fact, he had already begun by giving much too much power to Allison, and the little Red was now more powerful even than Flint, and would remain so until she had used up her reserves. Of course, he neglected to tell either of them this fact. It would be his private little joke. Flint was in for a big surprise. It would be so much fun to watch him try to manipulate the girl … and fail. The little Red was going to make him suffer all right, and oh how Caligula would revel in his pain. Oh yes!

  And so he contented himself with sending her one last wave, just strong enough to bring Allison down a notch (although he was surprised to see how much energy it took him to manage it), but not enough to break her spirit.

  Not yet. Not this time.

  To his great relief, Flint realized that Allison had held on. She was suffering from the blow, but still standing.

  “Not bad,” conceded Caligula as he halted his bombardment. “Decarus, the first phase is now over. Bring the girl back for phase two.” He didn’t tell him that there actually was no need for a phase two; he just wanted to see them again to evaluate how much damage he’d done. “My dinner awaits me.”

  Allison was about to make another snide comment but Flint had already grabbed her by the arm and was pulling her out of the room. As they left the house, they passed six Reds who were ushering in a blue Cherub. The young man was very excited and talking loudly: “No way! A Roman emperor? Are you serious? That’s so insane! I was out clubbing, I got in my car and then “boom!”, and here I am … Now it’s like I died or something, and I’m going to meet a real Roman emperor. What a cool dream!”

  Allison could imagine what was in store for him. And despite everything that Caligula had put her through, she couldn’t help but shiver when she heard the little Blue start to scream. But just like in the arena, his voice quickly began to fade away as Caligula ate his dinner.

  “That big tub of lard’s a Chimera, isn’t he?” she asked Flint.

  “Yes. He hunted down and ate all the people responsible for his death, and now the only way he can stay alive is by eating other Angels.”

  “And you haven’t locked him up?”

  Flint looked despondent.

  “We tried,” he sighed. “He’s much too powerful.”

  Ah. So there were double standards here, just like on Earth. They locked up and starved to death the Angels they could catch, while others could go about their business with complete impunity.

  “Does that mean I’ll have to eat other Angels now?”

  Flint looked at her, horrified by the indifference in her voice.

  “No, of course not! Caligula transferred some of his power to you, that’s all. You can eat Mist just as usual.”

  “Really? It’s just as well. It would have been annoying to look like I was nine months’ pregnant every time I ate.”

  Flint swallowed hard, disturbed by how cold and hard her voice was.

  When they were finally outside the huge mansion, Allison turned toward Flint without warning and slammed him against a stone wall so hard that the old Angel thought he might pass right through it. He was surprised to realize that he was actually a bit frightened. It had been years since he had felt so troubled. After spending so much time feeding off the emotions of others, the oldest Angels eventually began disregarding their own feelings. But these new sensations were proving to be quite delicious. Flint was curious to see what she would do to him.

  “So, do you still want me, you big blue Angel?” Allison whispered, her mouth so close to Flint’s that he could feel her burning hot breath on his lips.

  “Now and forever,” replied Flint, who almost grew faint as he felt her body pressed against his.

  “Well, you can’t have me until you’ve lived up to your end of the bargain,” she whispered and pulled away.

  But before he could even reply (he had really thought she was going to swallow him whole, which he would have loved), Allison had taken off, darting through the air like a rocket. Flint could only stare in disbelief. Good God! What had Caligula done? And how could a little Red like her fly like that?!

  He flew after her. In a few seconds they had reached the Washington airport, found a plane about to take off for New York, and caught it on the fly. Flint chased after Allison and comfortably installed himself next to her in the airplane. She refused to even look at him. He was starting to think he’d gotten a raw deal, and decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.

  “You’re nearly as powerful as an old Angel now. At the speed you were going, you could have been in New York in an hour!”

  “I don’t want to waste my new powers; they’re too precious.” Allison looked down longingly at the glass of champagne in the hand of the living passenger she was sitting on.

  She was right about her powers, Flint realized. Unsure how to proceed, he tried another approach.

  “You think you’ll do better than Lili, thanks to Caligula’s help? That you’ll be able to ‘persuade’ Ventousi?”

  “No,” she replied calmly. “I couldn’t care less about the drug right now. I want to see him behind bars. We’re going back to New York to influence the detectives who are leading the investigation into my murder.”

  He winced. Was she going back to see the inspectors or to find Jeremy? He couldn’t be sure, and another emotion that he hadn’t felt for centuries came rushing back: jealousy. He quickly brushed it aside, preferring to believe what Allison had said.

  “Despite your new powers, you’re still a very young Angel. You don’t know how to use them, and have no idea how to guide the living in such a complicated case.”

  What he was implying was obvious: “Not nearly as well as an old Angel like me.”

  “You’re probably right,” Allison conceded. Flint still took her for a fool, but she decided to play along just in case she actually did have problems influencing the detectives. “But you’ll help me, won’t you?”

  He nodded obediently.

  Allison loved it: the feeling of power and strength, the feeling of control. She loved to watch Flint, the venerable Flint, wriggle like a worm on a hot summer sidewalk. She could almost see his tongue wagging like a good little doggy, ready to do anything she asked. She stretched out comfortably on her living passenger, delighted. Oh, how great it was to no longer have any doubts, to no longer be afraid (because she had been afraid for so many years—afraid to live her life to the fullest, above all)! She would make Ventousi rot in prison. And would feed off his anguish and misery. Day after day.

  When they arrived in New York, Allison never mentioned Jeremy�
�s name, to Flint’s great relief. She told him her plan, and they went directly to the police department. Allison sat down on the desk of detective Bonham, the officer who had given her his card in front of her apartment building when she was still alive. She looked absolutely adorable in the white miniskirt Flint had made for her, with her long legs crossed gracefully over his stacks of files.

  “OK, Flint,” she purred. “Let’s see if you have more success with him than your little girlfriend Lili had with Ventousi.”

  Flint frowned, choked down his wounded pride, and did as he was told. He began talking to the inspector in the firm voice the Angels used when they manipulated the living.

  “There’s something fishy about this case. That researcher at the lab, the student, and the trader have nothing in common. The researcher was in her fifties and had brown hair, the girl was blond and barely twenty years old, and the guy was brown-haired and twenty-three. Serial killers are very methodical; they don’t just kill at random! The whole thing doesn’t make any sense, and you just know that there’s something you’ve missed. They found a prepaid cell phone on the killer; he’d received several calls from another prepaid cell phone. So it probably wasn’t a serial killer, but a series of executions by a hit man. It’s clear as day, Inspector!”

  The officer, who was working on an entirely different case, frowned exactly as Flint had a few seconds earlier, and started talking to himself: “There’s something strange about those prepaid cell phones. Serial killers almost always work alone, but it looks like this guy had plenty of friends. And what about that katana? That doesn’t seem right either. That’s a heavy-duty weapon. It’s pretty drastic: He didn’t even make his victims suffer. It was more like an execution: one whack! and it’s all over, nice and neat. And what about all the stuff he was carrying? He had a bunch of knives, like a real pro. Without that girl and her lamp, we never would have had a clue.”

  Flint nodded, satisfied with his work. The inspector was developing his theory, just as he’d wanted him to. The old Angel kept on talking: “When they went to talk to the kids at the school, you saw a name on the list of students, a name that you’d heard somewhere before. At the time, you didn’t give it much thought because you thought the student teacher was the victim of a serial killer. But think, now! Wasn’t there a Peter Ventousi on the list? Ventousi! Like the name of the pharmaceutical company where the researcher worked!”

  Allison bowed her head slightly in admiration. The inspector suddenly jumped to his feet.

  “There was something fishy about that list of students … now where could I have put it?”

  He started sifting through the stacks of files on his desk, passing his hands right through the perfectly bronzed thighs of Allison, who found it all terribly amusing. Finally the officer found what he was looking for: a sheet of paper with a list of about twenty names on it.

  He quickly read through it. His face lit up.

  “Yes!” he yelled victoriously. “I knew I’d seen that name somewhere before! It only took about sixty seconds for me to find the connection between the two murders. Incredible. Peter Ventousi, the son of the guy who used to own the drug company, was in the class where the student teacher worked!”

  “But that’s not all, Inspector,” Flint whispered in his ear. “See if there isn’t another name on the list that would connect it all back to the murder of Jeremy Galveaux …”

  Flint turned back to Allison.

  “What’s his half sister’s name again?”

  “Tachini,” answered Allison, who was fascinated by how easy it was to manipulate the officer.

  Flint repeated the information, and the inspector began checking his file against the list of names. For a second time he jumped up excitedly: “Holy shit! I had all the information right in front of me and never even saw it! Too much fucking pressure, too much work … ah, this fucking job! The mother got remarried, her name’s Galveaux-Tachini, and one of Peter Ventousi’s classmates is a little Tachini! All three murders are connected!”

  He grabbed his jacket and his list and ran out the door like his pants were on fire. Flint gave Allison the victory sign.

  “Good. Now all we have to do is go find a junky,” she smiled as she hopped down from the desk.

  Flint didn’t understand.

  “A what? Why?”

  Allison gave him a radiant smile.

  “So we can take our detectives on a little fishing trip, of course!”

  The rest was a piece of cake. Water was hardly an obstacle for Angels, who could see right through it as if it were air. Lili had told them the exact spot in the river where Ventousi had thrown his cell phone. Allison didn’t know if the phone could be used as evidence by the police, but it was worth a try. Flint suggested to a junky that he hold up a grocery store, right across from the spot. The poor guy lost control of the situation when Allison, who was having the time of her life, filled the store clerk with almost superhuman courage and made him lunge at the robber. He fired in a panic, wounding the clerk in the shoulder, fled across the street to the riverside, and threw his weapon into the Hudson in front of witnesses before disappearing down a side street.

  Allison waited patiently, and a few hours later she lent a hand to the police divers.

  “It’s not a revolver that you see there,” she whispered to the diver. “Oh no, it’s a cell phone. That’s weird. Now why would someone throw a brand new cell phone into the river? You should probably take it. You never know, maybe the guy who held up the grocery store threw it in along with his gun.”

  Allison was delighted to see how easily she could speak to the living. She didn’t say a word about it to Flint, who was so eager to show Allison how indispensable he was, but the power Caligula had given her was proving to be so potent that she never doubted for a second that she could get Ventousi to do what she wanted.

  Except it would be much more amusing to watch him waste away in prison.

  A cruel smile crossed her face as the diver made his way back to the surface, after she had also shown him where the junkie’s gun was located.

  Once the police had gotten their hands on Ventousi’s phone, the rest was easy to orchestrate. Fortunately, the police had received a new software program a few months back that cross-referenced all the phone numbers that had been made to or from crime scenes, and highlighted them in red. As soon as the numbers from the phone were entered into the computer, the program indicated that one of the numbers belonged to the “grim reaper,” as all the newspapers were now calling Khan.

  And so they sent an e-mail to Inspector Bonham.

  Six hours later the cell phone was already at the forensics lab, and the next morning they were able to identify a fingerprint. Despite the protests of his lawyers, Ventousi was forced to provide a set of his own prints. Unluckily for him, they matched. It wasn’t enough evidence to keep him locked up, but they put the screws on him to try to force a confession. The thick clouds of Mist that emanated from Ventousi were pure anguish, and Allison fed off him hungrily, stuffing herself so much that an anxious Flint finally had to pull her away.

  “Thanks to Caligula, you’re already red enough,” he told her. “Be careful! If you eat too much you’ll disappear. I didn’t do all this to lose you now, my pretty.”

  He continued to see her as a little Cherub whom he would be able to manipulate however he wanted. An obedient little Barbie doll that would keep under his heel. Allison continued to obey him, thinking all the while that the wake-up call for Flint was going to be … very difficult. For the time being, she still needed him to get her revenge, and once she had, he would truly understand what it meant to suffer.

  The wheels of justice were now slowly turning, and there was nothing more they could do for the moment. Allison suggested they head back to Washington for phase two of her transformation. She had loathed the first phase, but the power it had given her was so exhilarating that she wanted even more. Much more than the Mist, the almost limitless power she could feel
coursing through her had become a drug. A hard drug.

  As for Flint, he had no intention of allowing Allison to see Caligula again, but he agreed to return to Washington because he had finally received the message he had been waiting for over the last three months. It was a note from Lili, carried by one of her “pets,” a certain Connor. He had quickly flown to New York to give Flint her message, but didn’t look any too happy about it. He quietly passed along the information to Flint while Allison was busy with the inspector interrogating Ventousi.

  One of these days, an Angel would have to invent some reliable form of communication in this world, because it was bothersome to always have to leave notes made of Mist to let other Angels know his whereabouts, or be forced to use messengers. Ever since the living had invented portable phones, Flint had been itching to get his hands on one.

  The note was from Lili, who was ecstatic. And victorious.

  Mission accomplished. He’s all mine.

  Flint rushed Allison onto the first flight back to Washington the next morning. She couldn’t understand why he was suddenly in such a hurry, but was only too happy to comply since it would bring her closer to the source of her newfound power. When they arrived, Flint immediately took her to a luxurious apartment she had never been to before and ushered her right into the bedroom, where she saw two people with familiar faces, still lying in bed in each other’s arms.

  Lili.

  And Jeremy.

  17

  The Taste of Power

  Flint couldn’t help but grin as he contemplated their two naked bodies, while Allison scowled down at them with utter contempt. But Jeremy was already taking action. He sprang from the bed, crashed headlong into Allison at full speed, dematerialized, and pulled her through a series of walls along with him. Before she had time to react, they had tumbled headfirst down an elevator shaft, just as Jeremy had planned. Lili’s apartment was on the top floor of a fifteen-story apartment building, and the brief fall nearly knocked both of them senseless. It may not have been very gentlemanly of him, but as they were plummeting earthward he had made sure Allison would be on the bottom. The impact only left her groggy for a few minutes—he knew she wouldn’t really be hurt.