by Amy Vansant
Michael pulled the upside-down Antique Boxes book from his shelf and righted it. The position of this book inspired almost as many questions as the mysterious photograph. For instance, if the cleaning lady removed the book to read it, how did she not see how dusty the entire shelf had become?
Michael’s lip twitched. Agitated, he pulled all the books from the shelf, stacking them neatly on the floor around him.
He needed a dust rag.
The Angelus moved behind his desk in search of something that he could use to clean the shelf. The mysterious envelope defiling his “To Do” box demanded his attention, but he couldn’t look at it now. There were too many other things: he had to clean the shelf, fix the book, plan his visit with Anne, and make a note to leave an angry message for the cleaning staff. He felt like his head was ready to explode as it was.
Still, the package beckoned to him.
With a sigh, Michael reached for the envelope.
The envelope held one eight-by-ten photo. The lack of commercial lab markings made it probable that the photographer had developed it. The black-and-white photo revealed a nondescript bedroom, with unoriginal art on the wall and an air conditioning unit barely visible beneath the one large window. Only a hotel could decorate a room with such an utter lack of creativity.
A bed occupied the lower half of the image. On the bed lay the missing Ariel. She appeared asleep, curled in a fetal position, a stuffed teddy bear under her arm. Michael knew that if the woman in the photo was Ariel, she was not sleeping. No Angelus, neither Arch nor Guardian, needed to sleep; a fact which made the photograph more disturbing. She'd been posed to appear asleep.
Michael found comfort in the addition of the teddy bear nestled beneath her arm. The posing felt heavy-handed and, in his opinion, amateurish. It made his enemy seem less evil and more desperate for attention.
A figure stood beside the bed, leaning over Ariel. Michael could not discern if it was male, female, human or Angeli, though somehow it felt male to him. The picture itself was in sharp focus, but the edges of the menacing creature were violently blurred, jagged light streaks slashed throughout its dark humanoid shape. It appeared as though someone had tried to scratch the figure from the photo with a pin, but when Michael ran his finger over the print, he felt the smooth continuation of an untouched surface.
Outside the window behind the figure, Michael noted a dome, illuminated by electric lights, glowing against the night sky. He easily recognized the architecture; the creature was offering Michael a hint as to his location. Or, if the kidnapper revealed the dome by accident, he was a stupid, careless beast.
The monster’s left hand hovered near Ariel’s head, as if he prepared to pet her long hair with his ragged claw as she slept, unaware and vulnerable. His right hand held aloft a small scrap of paper; a note. The monster’s face fixed on the lens; he paid no real attention to Ariel. His focus was on the future recipient of the photo.
He wanted Michael to know that this was a message.
The creature’s twisted fingers held the note to the camera. The horribly crooked scrawl on it formed one simple sentence:
Bring me Anne Bonny.
Michael placed the photo on his desk and walked to the mirror hanging on the inside of his office door. His image began to blur and glow with blue light, until his countenance disappeared entirely, replaced by a ghostly figure composed of swirling blue electricity.
All Angeli possessed two forms: one human and one of pure energy. Their human form appeared human in every way. Food was not necessary for survival, but enjoyed. They could appear as young as a teen and as old as Methuselah, but like real humans, kept the same general appearance at all ages with only small variations in skin and hair color, wrinkles, lines and mass. If wounded in human form, Angeli could shift in part or in whole into their energy form to accelerate healing.
Michael wondered if a figure between his human and energy forms could mimic the strange creature in the photograph. He shifted in shape and color, crackling with energy in a multitude of different configurations; some fiery, some dim, some humanoid and some amorphous or bird-like, as he allowed his wings to unfurl.
Michael stretched his wings as far as the room would allow. The few humans throughout history who had seen the Angeli in their energy form nearly always recorded their experience as meeting a glowing man with “wings.” It was easy for Michael to understand why humans assumed they were wings for flight; there existed little else in nature to compare to the glowing appendages. In addition to the wing-like shape, when moved quickly, the ensuing trail of light gave them an almost feathery appearance.
Though the dense glow of Michael’s wings made them appear solid, they were in fact a lattice; reminiscent of a spider web glistening with morning dew. The lattice, when drawn, served as a shield, or it could sweep at an opponent, causing damage as the disruptive energy passed through a foe. The netting of the wings could be powered down to touch objects as gently as a caress, or, in the heat of battle, energized to wound. Powering up the wings required a tremendous amount of energy, and without a source nearby from which to draw additional power, even the most powerful Angeli could only maintain the highest intensity for a few minutes.
Angeli received their strength from any source of energy. The sun, electricity pulled from a common outlet, or the life force of plants provided most Angeli with all the day-to-day strength they needed. Angeli could also steal small “sips” of energy from humans without causing the human harm. Angeli shared their own energy with a human during the act of sipping, and this exchange (for a small net loss) offered the human great benefits. It boosted their immune system to fight disease, mimicked the high felt during exercise, or provided sexual climax. In the end, the human would fall into a sweet state of exhaustion, and the Angelus would have had his or her afternoon snack.
Sometime in the year twelve, several Guardian Angels had fed on humans long enough to kill them, an act impossible to imagine before that moment. A disease crept into the Angeli community in that moment. When Angels killed during a human feeding, the act initiated an ongoing, insatiable craving for human energy. The Angels became corrupt, continuing to drain and kill humans, until they could no longer hide their thirst from the rest of the Angeli. The corrupted Angels were known as Perfidia, Latin for “treacherous ones.”
Their existence proved puzzling to the Angeli. How could an immortal race police its own? Even the more powerful Arch Angels lacked the ability to kill another Angel. They could subdue them and keep them far from humans, but they couldn’t imprison the corrupted forever; every Angel lost to Perfidia left a hole in their ranks and disrupted their mission.
After several heated debates, the Archs agreed to create Sentinels, humans bestowed with a portion of the Archs’ own energy in a reverse charge. Only these Sentinels could defeat Perfidia. Sentinels could use their own energy to disrupt that of the Perfidia, scattering the corrupted Angels’ ions across the globe. By the time the disrupted Angels reassembled, their lust for human energy had dissipated. They began anew with no memory of past transgressions.
Michael wondered if the creature in the photograph suffered some stage of Perfidia that he had not yet seen. Michael tried to reproduce the visage of the monster in the photograph with his own body, but to no avail. No form between his energy-self and human shape bore resemblance to the creature in the photo. Michael had to consider the possibility that the monster hovering over Ariel was not another Angelus at all, but a new entity. The idea seemed impossible, but just a few thousand years ago, so had the concept of an Angelus draining a human to death.
Michael marveled at the chaotic dark and light streaks throughout the body of the creature in the photograph. The configuration of light that comprised this being was like the physical representation of madness.
Michael snapped back to his human form, his custom-tailored suit seamlessly reappearing around him. He stroked his lapel, deep in thought. How had the Perfidia fallen? What if this new creat
ure was an Angelus suffering yet another form of corruption? Where would it end?
Michael paced back to his desk and scanned the photograph a hundredth time for clues. He thought he could discern a face through the streaks, or at least define eye sockets and a bright orb inside each. The jagged tear where the monster’s mouth should be mimicked a hideous smile. He knew any number of digital image programs could create such a strange photo, but Michael felt to the core of his being that this was no artistic rendering.
“I have news,” said a gruff voice.
Michael twisted to find his fair-haired brother, Leo, standing just inside the office. He hadn’t heard the door open, but Angeli didn’t need to open doors to enter a room. Michael hoped his careless brother hadn’t done anything unusual in front of Grace, his assistant, stationed just on the other side of his door in the outer office. Grace thought she worked for a political consultant, not an energy-being tasked with keeping the world running smoothly.
“Doors. Use the doors,” said Michael.
“Grace is at lunch.”
“Doesn’t matter. Get in the habit.”
Leo shrugged. His eyes moved towards the books piled on the floor. “What’s going on here?”
Michael sighed.
“Don’t ask. You wouldn’t happen to have a handkerchief or something like that on you?”
“A handkerchief? No, I mean, I meant to stop in 1940 on the way here but I ran out of time.”
“Very funny.” Michael’s eyes fell on his books, piled on the floor around him. With some effort, he turned his attention back to Leo. “What do you need?”
“I have an update on the grave,” said Leo flopping into a chair sitting in front of Michael’s desk. “And Anne is in Annapolis.”
Michael nodded. “Speaking of Annapolis,” he said. “Now that you’re here I can show you the odd gift I found on my desk.”
Michael handed Leo the photograph.
“Note the Annapolis capitol dome through the hotel window.”
After studying the photo for a minute, Leo looked back at Michael.
“What the hell is this? And who took the photo? Does this monster have a personal photographer?”
“I don’t know. I do know it’s a threat. Ariel didn’t return my summons and then this arrived. By the time I located the room they were long gone. Tell me more about the grave the humans found in Annapolis.”
“The ground collapsed beside historic Brice House and they found maybe fifty human bodies, some close to two hundred years old, some recent.” Leo paused. “But the energy signature on some of the more recent bodies is not what you’d expect. Something, unfamiliar.”
Leo lifted the photograph again to study it more closely. After a moment, he handed it back to Michael.
“Whatever that thing is makes two unfamiliar things,” he said, motioning to the monster.
“Does it? Or are they the same unfamiliar thing?”
“You think this guy left the bodies in the grave? You think he’s a Perfidian?” asked Leo.
“Anything is possible.”
“That explains why you called in Anne.”
“Yes. I called the Annapolis Historical Society and told them I’d heard about their discovery on the news and that my friend, the famous historian Anne Bonny, would be in town if they’d be interested in her opinion on their discovery. They were more than thrilled to arrange a meeting for us tomorrow at the site.”
“Your friend,” said Leo, winking.
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Honestly Leo, you’re like a four-year-old.”
Leo chuckled.
Michael stared into space and Leo relaxed into his chair, waiting for his brother to finish his thought.
“This feeds into all my fears,” Michael said after a protracted silence.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking...” Michael stood and made his way to the window. He bathed in the sunlight, letting the sun’s power feed his need for energy. “Whenever humans really need something, whether it is the ability to create fire or a vaccine, somehow the answer pops into the consciousness of the Arch Angels and we provide them with the knowledge.”
“Synchronicity. Simultaneous ideas.”
“Yes. Nice of Carl Jung to give it a name for us.”
“So?”
“I’ve been wondering from where the bad ideas arrive.”
Leo stared at Michael, allowing his brother’s words to germinate. “From people...” he said, his voice raising enough to imply his statement might be a question.
“So we come up with all the good ideas, and people have all the bad ones?”
“Well, we certainly didn’t suggest they start building a nuclear arsenal. That’s why we’re here, right? To protect them from themselves.”
“I’m not buying it,” said Michael, picking up one of the books at his feet. He dusted it with his hand, grimacing with disgust as he did so. “What if there are other creatures out there, compelled to do evil just as we are compelled to protect the humans? What if we’ve been pitted in a battle of good versus evil and don’t even know it?”
Leo laughed. “What’s the matter? Did you finally run out of other things to worry about? Don’t you think we would know if we had evil doppelgangers out there? Or if there was a whole other evil race?”
“Would we?”
Leo put his hands on his hips, his massive pectoral muscles flexing as he did so. “Hell, I can rattle off three species of monkeys we know about that the humans don’t know exist. We would know. Nothing could hide from us this long.”
“But we don’t know everything or there would be no Perfidia.” Michael carefully replaced the first book and then picked up the next. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud.”
“You worry about the damndest things.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Oh, and while we’re on the subject of bad ideas... What about the note in this thing’s hand?”
Michael steadied the last book on the shelf. “What about it?”
“Why does this mysterious monster know about Anne? And why does it want her? You don’t find that odd?”
Michael shrugged. “She’s probably our most effective Sentinel. Maybe that thing is a Perfidian and feels threatened by her.”
“The point is—” began Leo.
“The point is that we have Anne there to help us take care of the matter, one way or the other.”
Michael noticed Leo’s darkening scowl. He held his brother’s gaze, awaiting the speech he knew was coming.
“You give her too much credit. This note is highly suspicious. We’ve never had a Perfidian call out a specific Sentinel before.”
Michael shook his head. “Anne, like any other Sentinel, works for us. She kills Perfidia, and helps us. We’re the good guys.” Michael smirked. “Well, I am. Sometimes I wonder about you.”
“You’re stupid around her,” Leo grumbled.
Michael blanched. “I am not.”
“I know you think you can protect everyone, but sometimes someone needs to protect you. As your closest sibling, the responsibility falls to me. You’re the brains and I’m the brawn; that’s how it works. How can I protect you when you’re bending to the demands of whatever that is—” Leo motioned to the photograph, “and bringing in the one person who can distract you to the point of making bad decisions?”
“Keep your voice down,” said Michael, with a furtive glance at his office door.
“I’m telling you it’s a trap. Some kind of trap. Something is up.”
Leo leaned forward on Michael’s desk to make his point, his hand brushing the leaf of an ivy plant in a decorative container. The ivy shriveled in an instant, first turning brown and then crumbling to dust.
Michael took a sharp breath through his nose, puffed out his cheeks and then released the trapped air with a pop.
“Great,” he said, dismayed by the death of the plant. “Grace gave that to me and you just ate it
.”
Leo looked down at the ash.
“Sorry. Tell you what. I’ll just keep watching you make an ass out of yourself and then I’ll try to be there when you need me to clean up the mess, as usual.”
“Perfect,” said Michael, moving in to brush the crumbled plant from his desk and into his palm. “And I’ll clean up your mess.”
“Fine. I’ll leave you here with your dusty books and conspiracy theories.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Leo turned to leave.
“Door,” said Michael without looking up from his housekeeping.
Leo grunted and reached for the doorknob.
“And Leo—”
Leo turned.
“I’ll be with Anne tomorrow, but I want you to be her shadow when I leave. Keep an eye on her.”
“Oh, naturally, my liege,” said Leo, bowing low and stepping backwards as he phased through the door.
Chapter Ten
Anne awoke to the sound of Jeffrey cursing from the second bedroom in the suite. She smiled, guessing it would probably take him a good half an hour to remove the Maori warrior designs she had painted on his face with mascara during the night.
Let’s see how eager he is to make t-shirts now.
“Tip of the iceberg!” she called to him.
Anne rolled on her side, careful not to kick her dogs, before realizing no canines shared her bed. At home, surrounded by her four dogs, she rarely had the luxury of stretching out. Now, with all the room in the world, she pined for the chocolate Labradoodle, Pug mutt, Soft-coated Wheaten, and Fluffy White Dog of Indeterminable Origin. She had already been missing them during her planned, now interrupted, East Coast excursion. It appeared, with all the new intrigue, it would be some time before she saw them again.
Anne found her cell phone and called her housekeeper, Florence, to check on the dogs’ welfare. To her chagrin, every one of the ungrateful mutts seemed unaffected by her absence. Anne liked to imagine her dogs at least skipped a meal, or stared at the door longingly for a day or two after she left. Maybe a single, mournful howl echoed through her building in the middle of the night, bringing tears to the eyes of the other residents.