I froze her hand over the metal dragon, rendering her arm lifeless to displace the sacred talisman. I don’t know why I bothered. Protecting Jen had become questionable even with the talisman in place. And if I needn’t protect her, I could more easily protect me. But . . . I couldn’t let her go. I had to sway her in my favor—Eventually, victory would be mine.
She rose in the slowest motion I’d ever seen in a human, like if she rose slowly enough, I wouldn’t notice she was trying to get away.
I encased her with my mind. My little way of telling her she was still possessed.
Her eyes questioned, “Are you going to hurt me?” She tried to step back, but I froze her legs. She should know better than to try and play cat and mouse with me. She never wins unless I let her, and that’s not often. She was going to hear what I had to say.
Her expression pled for freedom. Not an option.
I sent my eyes whirling, whirling, in an attempt to draw her into me. “Earth has polarities. You are connection—healing. And I am separation—destruction. One can’t exist without the other. One cannot—,” I was getting a revelation, “survive without—the other. Jen,” my whirling eyes stopped. I grasped her arms gently. “That is why we cannot part.”
Terror did not leave her face, but the sinister expression had left mine.
“Before I found you, I was bored with destroying. Before you met me, you were tired of being destroyed. But when we came together, I found mercy and you found might.” I brushed my finger down her cheek, softening my voice. “Stop fighting me. Let’s dance the dance.”
She glared at me like I was a monster. She was the monster . . . to me anyway.
I said, “What could be worse than the suffering you have already known in your past lives? What?”
She wailed, “Loving a demon!”
“You don’t—” I shoved her, unfreezing her legs so that she could fall and I could tower above her, “—understand. You will never understand.”
She curled into a ball. Her great escape. Denial.
Her distrust enraged me, a rage growing hard to control. Maybe I could not preserve her. Maybe I had to kill her to have her, and I preferred taking her to losing her. Perhaps that was as close as a Tazmark could get to attaining a Shen’s virtue. It certainly would destroy Aruka and Diego’s plans, and perhaps restore my power. Maybe the dance of dark and light had to be done as one instead of two.
I could destroy her, and drink her essence, and be done with her pious attempts to shun me. Inside me, she could not contest. I could feed off her for at least a century if I rationed her carefully.
My eyes flared red. Heat burned in my sockets. Fury ignited my will to break hers. I tried to want that. I tried. But such a sight she was, curled in a ball, hair caved over her modest body, shaking hard, little toes poking out from beneath her sheer gown. Her ethereal wings were not done growing. Her aura harbored something that neither she nor I had yet discovered. My curiosity made the red retreat from my eyes. Still, I could not take her. Her innocence . . . I loved it too much. Love was fucking real. Fucking real for me.
Only for me. She did not love me back. Whoever said Shens were good at that? The ease with which she turned on me was proof. For who we were, the reverse should be true. The infuriating irony of the situation boiled over my intrigue of her innocence. Leaving her quickly was essential, lest I unintentionally destroy her after all. I needed to destroy something.
I disappeared, leaving her there to contemplate her fate, where she could not run from reality and would be forced to witness the hard history I’d made. Let her wilt with horror! She deserved it.
But as I could not vent my wrath on her, I would vent it on another.
Chapter Ten
I flew to present day France smelling around in the night for Angel Boy. His odor was strong, oceanic with a hint of sweet gardenia. I appeared in his Parisian apartment in the dark of his bedroom. I looked down upon him sleeping in his four-poster double bed. It was nearly 3:00 a.m., far past my feeding time. The female Taz’s pumper was not enough.
Angel boy’s sweet do-gooder face nestled in a billowy, white pillow, beckoned my ire. Calling or not, I would take him now. I’d silence his vocal chords, and rip him from limb to limb with my bare hands. Vengeance is mine sayeth the devil.
“Ah ah, Juan.” Diego appeared on the other side of the bed, his black cape darker than the night. He waggled his finger at me with theatrical demeanor. “If you kill him when he does not call, it will weaken you. Do you not know this?”
I had never actually killed anyone who did not call. Calls had always been plentiful. I grumbled. This new desire to kill a non-caller was all about jealousy, all about Jen.
Diego scoffed, “If you must be rid of him, transport him to the volcanoes in Chile—and abandon him there.” With gloved hands on hips in a stance of dominion, he said. “Or, let me put it this way. If you do not transport him there, I will imprison you in that Black Box of which you are so fond.”
Teenage rebellion. That’s what I felt. I glared at him, blasting
red rage that nearly bowled him over.
He wavered, thickening his Black Light Shield. “You have less than a minute to do as I bade.” My hatred rose, nearly manifesting an explosion in Angel Boy’s bedroom. Taking orders was the worst.
He awoke with a startle. “Uh, uh, what’s—”
I rose to the ceiling taking us into the sixth realm, dragging his body into the air. He finished his sentence in a sharp upward pitch. “—happening! Where are you taking me?”
“Some place hot,” I said.
“Hell, you’re taking me to hell?”
“That’s one way of viewing it.” We went through the roof of his apartment.
“Who—ah,” he said, “what’s going on? Did I just go through my roof?”
I drug him across the sixth realm night sky, body dangling.
“Oh dear Savior!” he cried.
I whispered beneath my breath, “Another fucking ‘believer.’”
I entertained dropping him here in the sixth realm to be a Halkodama’s meal. However, Diego would punish me, or try, and yes, probably succeed. I gnashed my fangs. Being on a leash did not suit me. I was used to executing things my own way, and I’d been obstructed at every turn since Jen and I had arrived in Chile.
Well, I had returned to Chile, this time with a special delivery. Though Tazmarks don’t like flying in the third realm because it is rough and painfully slow, I moved into it just to have fun with Angel Boy. I dangled him over active volcanoes, grazing his feet through stinging heat. He cried like a baby, and prayed like zealot. Twelve feet above an inactive volcano, I dropped him. I didn’t even wait for him to hit ground before I flew away.
Since I was flying in the third realm, I went into Pericludies, so no human eyes could see me. Such sightings weren’t worth the trouble they could bring.
Soaring over the volcano chain, I sensed a Tazmark. Concentrating, I saw him at the rim of an active volcano engrossed in the sloshing, sputtering magma; red, orange, and yellow. He wore a maroon leather vest over bare-chest, and maroon leather pants. His bare feet were sooty with ash. A black skullcap topped his wavy light brown hair that hung long over broad shoulders. He was a tough looking Taz, smoking a cigarette with one hand and drinking from a bottle of vodka with the other. I moved into his mind briefly: He was Alacalufe and Russian, an over two thousand year old freshly turned level eight, half-golden, half-black Taz. I’d never met a mixed breed before. His was named Tupuro.
Feeling my presence, he turned his head up my way and saluted. Ah, the battle to come—we would fight then. Any attempt to rush the showdown would be thwarted. Tazmarks live for blowout combat—me included.
Slipping into the sixth realm, I flew back to Paris, yet enraged, and not appeased. I felt like a rebel teen. Toying with one, that is. Eating one, that is.
Paris at night. Now that’s a sight. I landed in human form on the back streets of a raunchy part of
town.
The full moon exposed my body, a thing I did not like. The light let my prey see me coming. I could attack from Pericludies, but that was no fun. People fear the dark. Fear excited me. I thrived on excitement. And aesthetically, well, pitch black enhanced the brilliant red of fear-filled auras. It was pretty.
But as it was, the full moon glowed brighter than ever, reminding me of Angels watching, waiting for their humans to call for them instead of me. But self-esteem had been on a steady decline since the turn of the century, so almost anyone I wanted . . . was mine. The age of technology had done me wonders, my instigation of course.
Over my tee shirt, jeans, and boots, I manifested a black trench coat stocked with knives. I planned to massacre a gang of street punks and feast on heart and soul.
I tramped through alleyways so fast my hair flew up at the sides. Fuck Diego, fuck Angel Boy, and fuck Jen. They can all go to fucking hell. I growled at the various street meat passing me with a quickened pace.
Jen’s innocent face floated into my mind like a cloud haunting me to death. I’d grown ill with love for her. I had to cure myself. If I could not kill her, maybe I could leave her, for it was certain that I should no longer try to love her. Loving her had become a quicksand demise for me. She would not do the dance. And anything was better than trying to make it happen. Jen was Jen, and she’d never, never, never love the real me unconditionally. She could not be immoral. And I could be no sweeter. Bitter was my, as they say, ‘cup of tea,’ and I was ready for a substantial dose. I needed to take back my reign of chaos on earth, conquer Diego, fight the Tazmarks in Chile, and win. I tried to wipe Jen’s face from my mind, but there it came again, her azure eyes beaming purity, her faint smile hoping I’d bear her no harm.
Why did she have to be so fucking good all the time? Why did her heart perpetually go to the underdog and never the overdog! What kind of a fucking Angel was she anyway—discriminating like that. Why couldn’t she get a little blood on her hands without wiping it clean with an act of repentance? Why couldn’t she curse and laugh about it, or see the merit in life’s dark side?
I made a fist and punched air.
A stalwart body strutted toward me, shoulder length dark hair combed back, olive skin looking tasty. This body called for fire. I was fire. As my target passed, I snatched the collar of his black tee shirt and slammed him against a red brick wall scribbled with graffiti. A wad of black bangs landed over his eye. The other eye peered at me intently. I had captured a trouble-bound teenager. Yum. His tee shirt had a picture of an upside down cross. Above it was written, “Hail Satan three times.” Ah, my kind of guy.
“Hey man,” he rasped in French, “what’s eating you?”
I bashed his back against the wall. “What will it take to fucking free her!” I said in his language.
“What?”
I was speaking in Old French. I’d forgotten to convert to modern times since I’d left Maréa. In Modern French, I proceeded to have an unhealthy conversation. “Why does she have to be so fucking stubborn?”
“I don’t know,” he eked, “who’s her?”
My animosity ignited the dumpster in back of me on fire.
“Oh shit,” he panted hard, “what the fuck is going on?”
My voice calmed. “Hail Satan three times,” I said with a sinister smile.
He mouthed silent words, “Oh God.”
I curled my lip. “That’s what I thought, all bark—and no bite.”
“I can bite.” He gulped.
His mind reeled with visions of a gang fight.
Smoke engulfed us. I inhaled the smoke. Ah, felt good.
My minion to be—coughed. “Are you . . . Satan? Because if you are, we have been summoning you to be our lord and empower us to rule the streets.”
How do you like that? A total stranger respects me, and Jen, the only love of my long, long life . . . cannot.
I yanked my victim forward and grabbed his neck from behind, steering him away from the fire. I read his mind, and said with sinister demure. “Take me to the fight . . . Pitchfork.”
He moaned, “You know my name. You knew I was going to a fight. You are Satan. You actually came! What took you so long?”
I shoved him forward, releasing his neck. “I have been—” I thought of Jen, “—preoccupied.”
Fire engines blared as I followed Pitchfork’s fast pace through back alleys, turning many corners. He glanced over his shoulder at me often, eyes ridden with excitement and fear, but becoming more maniacal as we approached a gang of fifty-three teenage boys.
“That’s my gang, Hell’s Spawn,” he said proudly. “Our rivals, The Blood Monkeys, will show soon.”
I walked ahead of him into the mob. Menacing young faces fell limp as I inspected them. I smelled methamphetamine on their breath, in their blood, some more than others—high on hate, auras murky red, libidos kicked on to the max. They summoned me for fire. Only one called from that pathetic victim world as my Jen too often did: a gangly boy with sad pasty eyes and a bright blue aura. He looked familiar. Ah, Dragonfly. I remember. Jen saved him from his abusive father. I suppose my love for Jen granted him one glimmer of my newly acquired mercy.
My face softened, but only for a moment. I said to Dragonfly, “Fucking love yourself. It’s the one and only way you can survive the Dragon’s breath of fire.”
From behind me I heard, “Who the hell are you?”
I turned around slowly to heighten the drama. A hard-faced punk in leather and chains, my height, glared at me through pasty spikes of long, black hair striping his face like jail bars. He waved his trench knife in front of my face, like it was supposed to scare me.
My eyes scrolled him coolly.
He slashed his knife close to my cheek. I didn’t flinch.
“I . . . I am the Prince of Darkness,” he said, a little unnerved that my demeanor was cool.
I pushed my face close to his. “Prince of Darkness, are you? Marcel, is it?”
He tried hard to silence his quivering breath. “That is no longer my name. I . . . I could crucify you now.”
“The true Prince of Darkness needs no blade to commit his tortures, unless of course,” I took a step back and opened up my trench coat, exhibiting my knives, “he’s really mad.”
The dozen pockets on either side were filled with my favorite exotic blades, mostly from the 1930’s (a good decade for knives).
Pitchfork intervened, digging his fingers into Marcel’s arm. “Don’t mess with him man. It’s him . . . Satan.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Marcel jerked his arm from Pitchfork, while giving me a ‘down dog’ stare.
“What do you want with us?” he said, trying to sound tough.
“Blood,” I pointed to a sea of bodies rounding a corner coming toward us, “theirs,” I ground my fist in my palm, “or yours.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Fine,” he said nervously, “theirs for now. We’ll deal with you later.”
My eyes lowered half-mast. “I can hardly wait.”
I turned to the opposing gang, who were partial to leather apparel, accessorized with whips. Little flames of hate that all together were no match for me. I walked toward them.
From behind me I heard Pitchfork tell Marcel, “I’m telling you, it’s him, Satan.”
“Satan doesn’t look human,” snarled Marcel. “He’s just an evil dude. He doesn’t scare me. Come on, let’s join the fight.”
Marcel’s gang began to follow me.
I turned back to them, eyes glaring. “They are all mine.”
Pitchfork said, “Let us fight too.”
“Leave him be,” said Marcel.
I read his thoughts; Let the Blood Monkeys kill him.
I grinned at Marcel, flashing my teeth like daggers, and for fun I made them sparkle.
Marcel’s eyes widened, and then he looked down, fearing the others noticed.
I faced the opposing gang, sardines in a can, wiggling with anticipation.
&n
bsp; I could choke them to death without moving a muscle, but I wanted to use body and blade to spill this spicy French blood.
I opened my trench coat. “Come on.”
After a lengthy pause, the two hundred and ten pound leader of the Blood Monkey’s broke into a laugh. “Just you, against all of us?” His heart pounded. His blood smelled appetizing.
I smiled. “Scared, huh?”
He sneered. “I don’t get scared.”
But his heart beat faster and I licked my lips.
He glanced back at his gang. “We don’t get scared . . . right?”
The gang mumbled, “No man, no, we don’t get scared.”
But their fear pulsed strong, pounding, pounding. Ah, the red—and visions of sugar blood danced in my head. My mouth watered. Saliva almost seeped over my lips, a sight that looked more stupid than cool, so I swallowed hard, nearly choking on my spit. But my hard stoical face gave away nothing.
The Blood Monkey leader shouted past me to Marcel. “Hey Prince, scared? Your boys cowards tonight? Gotta get some goon to fight your battles?”
“Shut the fuck up!” shouted Marcel. “We are no cowards!”
Goon. I didn’t appreciate being called a goon. It had such a low life ring to it, and I was way under low, too low to be bunched in with the common crook. I growled.
Marcel stepped forward, almost to my side. He wasn’t courageous enough to match me shoulder to shoulder. He waved his knife at the Blood Monkey leader. “I’ll cut your heart out and eat it before this night is through.”
I turned my head back slightly, allowing my Tazmark form to barely emerge. “Promise?” I smiled so that Marcel could see the fangs growing in my mouth. My eyes turned red.
He gulped, and stepped back. “Oh dear Savior.”
That name commonly emerged in dire times, even from non-believers. A low toned growl rumbled in my throat. I paralyzed the legs of Marcel and his gang.
Whispers of confusion. Whimpers of doom. My kind of music. Now they could not flee when they viewed the scene at hand. I placed an off limits spell around the alley so we’d not be noticed by outsiders. Then I created a sound proof vacuum around us to contain the noise. Ships that disappear in the Bermuda triangle . . . that’s the way it’s done.
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