An Angel's Touch

by Susan D. Kalior

  This was not Jenséa speaking; Jenséa had blended into something greater—Panacéa.

  I said, “You do not mind earth ending?”

  “What could I possibly do to save it? Things are what they are. If earth calls for destruction, it calls for destruction. What is—is. I can only be who I am—love.”

  I could not speak. I felt captured, yet freed. Shocked, yet relieved. She was bestowing me with the one gift only Panacéa could grant—pure unconditional love. Eons had come and gone, leaving me faithfully with that unfulfilled dream; but alas, it was only a distraction that kept me from who I am: Pure Chaos—unbound by the confines of this blue and green Terra, set free into the multi-dimensional realities of sundry kinds and countless worlds. And now that realization was again before me. Oh, to once more control the crazy minds of planetary dictators great and cruel, and killers with a cosmic purpose. To be the seething anger turned in, making martyrs . . . martyrs—or out, making massacres all they can be. To be the every imagined nightmare—actualized. To be an exploding star, streaking the universe as comet and meteor shower! And she, my Shen, my Goddess—must die for me to have it.

  “It’s okay, my love,” she said. “Do what you must. Turn me to stardust.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I will.” I would take her unconditional love and I would end her. I would help the Dragons destroy earth, crowning me Ixion once again. I—I would have it all! She wanted it—death. She wanted me to kill her.

  Staring into her liquid eyes, I wrapped my power pumped fingers around her creamy white neck, feeling her fragile windpipe, so easy to snap.

  She whispered softly, “I surrender,” and she mouthed, “to your beauty.”

  “P a n a c é a,” I said hauntingly, “move into my eyes.” My gaze beheld violent explosions and volcanic lust—the beginning and ending of all things. “Walk into the fire that is me.”

  Her acquiescent face changed forms as if under water: falling snow, dewdrops on a flower, an eye of pure love.

  And in that eye of pure love, an ancient memory was triggered, vivid and alive as if then was happening now. And now was then. So long ago, and so very now, with stars about and burning sun in distant celestial sky, I called her name—I call her name, in a mighty whisper that sounded—and sounds as a primeval echo filling the realm in which she dwelled—in which she dwells. “P a n a c é a.” I whispered loudly—I whisper now. This call, this call, it was a call, it is a call as such to draw her into the tunnels of fire that began in my eyes—that begin in my eyes, and go into the farthest depth of me, an inferno that would turn her to ash—that will turn her to stardust forevermore.

  She moved into my eyes, the Panacéa then, and the Panacéa now.

  My thumbs pressed harder into her windpipe, slowly, narrowing her passage for air.

  And then time seemed to split from when she came into my eyes then—and the coming of her into my eyes now. Then—she was with milky white hair floating about her white gown that twinkled silver, slow motion rippling in space. Glitters of Divine Light sparkled about her and left a trail from whence she’d come. Her eyes, like oceanic blue worlds gazed upon me with liquid wonder. And I looked into them. And I moved into them, journeying into the cool refreshing corridors into the furthest reaches of her being, of the mother’s touch, of the quenching drop of rain—so sweet, so bad. My fire went out. And I fell away from the Dragon Worlds, falling . . . falling.

  She had taken me, but that was then, and this is now. And now I would get myself back. It was her turn to be extinguished. The Panacéa now had entered the fire tunnels that began in my eyes, and would lead her to the farthest most reaches of my being. She brushed along the hot corridors, burning so sweet, so bad, moving deeper and deeper into the inferno that would turn her into stardust forevermore.

  My lungs hurt. My body hurt. I hurt, inflamed by the horror I wreaked and now felt in extinguishing such purity. And I closed my eyes, and I cried out in a whisper that sounded as an ancient echo filling the realm in which she dwelled, “Oh my Goddess of Ice and Snow!” With eyes closed, I was frozen, hands around her neck, breathing strained, slow, hard.

  My hesitance shocked me. My eyes opened. My hands left her neck. I pulled myself off her and stepped back, and back, and back.

  This woman, this goddess, sat up with soft grace. Her yellow hair was sandy and matted, but she glowed angelic beauty, even in the sixth realm.

  Repressed affection for Panacéa gushed from me, rampaging over all my barren years without her, smoldering, suffocating all I knew myself to be, and all I ever dreamed I would become. My forfeiture to become unbridled chaos in the universe lanced my character with a kind of holy terror—a prison of sorts, for I had burned the bridge to my liberation. What was liberation anyway?

  I addressed her, this goddess, this Shen, this woman, with trembling pointed finger engorged with anguished rage, and my intangible webbed wings flared behind me. “You . . . undo me—again.” My heart cracked with tendrils of love. Oh Quen-tan, the disease is back.

  She looked at me, this woman, this Shen, this goddess, against the sixth realm backdrop of gloomy sky and said, “To be undone is to unwrap one’s beauty.”

  I said with clenched teeth, “You have stolen my beauty!”

  She said, “Even chaos can be reborn.”

  “I can be loved, but to love turns me to nothing!”

  She rose naked and stepped up to me softly with narrow bare feet and blood stained thighs.

  “What is nothing, but that which is waiting to be born? Perhaps chaos can be more pure—touching love.”

  “What? Chaos born of love? Chaos in the name of love?” And for some reason, my eyes teared as I said, “An avenging angel after all?”

  She nodded.

  “What are you suggesting? That I can be gallant?” I thumped my heart. “There is no gallantry here.”

  She cocked her head, looking straight into me. “There is.”

  “I breed chaos. I induce suffering. It is what I am.”

  She touched my cheek. “But it is not all you are.”

  “I enjoy inflicting pain.”

  “How could you inflict it, if you did not?” Her hand left my cheek and touched the dragon talisman between her breasts, “Look what you’ve done for me.” Little pools of colostrum wet her enlarged pink nipples. She smiled faintly. “No matter how you experience it, pain precedes beauty. Labor precedes birth. And every sunrise of splashing color comes from the dark. To touch you is to move into the pain and find the source, a tiny flame that carries the promise of something great. But the prize can only be had by letting the flame grow into the toil and torment that challenges the spirit, and batters the already wounded heart. For in the deepest sorrow, our broken self, naked and raw, waits, and prays, and sometimes screams, desolate and desperate for something beautiful. And so it comes, ever and always it comes. A new day. A transformation. Beauty! In the furthermost reaches of the utmost suffering, profound beauty displays itself in a sunrise of panoramic color. The greater the suffering, the greater the beauty. And yes, my love, this is you. And it is only now that you realize how truly beautiful you are.” She touched my cheek. “The chaos you wreak insures that beauty will flourish.”

  I said, “I cannot inflict pain in the name of love. That is not for me.”

  “Maybe you are finished with the role you have played.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “That is not for me.”

  She stepped back. “All right then. I shall move into your being once more. Turn me to stardust. And you—go forth and experience pure chaos, void of temperance.”

  I shook my head. I was not ready for the gallant path she bade me walk. Nor could I extinguish hers. However, there was love in me for her—there was. My hand clutched my white shirt over my heart bursting with that love, inducing great pain.

  And in some strange compromise between both our paths, my arms and wings opened and both wrapped around her. Her arms slid around my waist, and there we stood in warm em
brace. It seemed that we moved in and out of each other, spinning, rising, falling—even though our feet were solid on the sixth realm ground. I could even feel her heart beating against me, and I wondered if she could feel mine. The dragon talisman smashed between us was once more under my control. She was once more under my control, and I equally was under hers. If only this moment could forever last, but the Dragons would come for me now, and they would bring their wrath.

  She froze, for she had read my mind.

  I stepped back and looked upon her as if for the last time.

  She said, “It is not too late to fulfill your plan.”

  I shook my head. “It is.”

  “If you turn me to stardust, you would be the Dragon leader, and then you could maybe find a way to spare earth.”

  I shook my head. The great sacrifice of every Shen was to die a martyr.

  “johnny, it is the best way.”

  I said, “That is too easy for you. A human life would serve you better. And for the words you spoke to me of gallantry, I now return. Let the flame of your humanity grow, of flesh and blood that knows the toil and torment of what it is to be human. For here, in your human body, in your deepest sorrow and broken self, you touch the fire. And you are transformed. A new day. A new you.”

  “johnny,” she said, “but, this isn’t about me. It’s about saving the earth if we can. Besides, it is easier for me to stay in pure love.”

  I narrowed an eye. “Just as it is easier for me to stay in raw chaos.”

  “But there is no other solution.”

  I quoted the High Lama Khandro. “An impasse is merely a clouded perception.”

  “Not this one,” she shook her head sadly.

  And then I added, “I don’t give up so easily.”

  “Then what? What shall we do?”

  I magically clothed her in a white silk dressing gown I’d once seen on a 13th Century Egyptian queen: loose on the shoulders, a fitted gold bodice that shimmered like a copper fish, with a skirt flowing to her ankles. “There,” I said, “this befits you.”

  She gazed upon it with appreciation, and ran her hands down the sides of skirt. “Thank you, but we haven’t much time.”

  I gave soft little white gowns to my sleeping babies.

  “johnny,” she said softly once more, “What are we going to do when the Dragons come?”

  I took her hand and led her back to the blanket where the babies slept. “Our powers together, with the other Shens and Tazmarks . . . maybe we can do something.”

  “Saving me is not worth risking the survival of our planet.” She winced and fell to her knees. “Something is wrong with me, a birth complication I think.” She glanced up at me. “This would be a good time to end me—truly.”

  “No.” I crouched down and lifted a baby to her, and then the other. “Can you hold them both?”

  She nodded.

  I said, “Can you stand?”

  She nodded again.

  I helped her rise. I wrapped my arms around her waist tightly to fly us into the third realm where the Shens could reach us. It seemed a mere transition, but I did need my wings, and if I did not hold her well, she could slide between the cracks that divided the realms. But we didn’t shift realms. Magic stopped us—Dragon Magic. We were sealed in the sixth realm.

  Over the ocean, drums sounded. No, not drums. It was the sound of massive Dragon wings flapping—the wings of a Dragon army. I released Jen and stepped toward the beach. In the distant sky, Dragons, a thousand fold—mostly black, some gold, flew toward us. Everything darkened to the deepest grey. Sharp wings cracked air, creating sixty-six mile per hour crosswinds. The earth rumbled, shaking slightly. People in this part of the world would experience it as a minor earthquake.

  Sand beat against my little family, waking the babies, making them cry. Jen crouched down to the blanket with her back against the sea, and lay the infants down. Huddling over them, her hair blew wildly in several directions. “What is wrong? Why can’t we leave?”

  I said, looking to the sky, “They don’t want us too.”

  “johnny!” she shouted over the blowing noise.

  I looked her way. Her head was raised to me with hair swirling around her face.

  She said, “Turn me to stardust, and this will all be over!”

  I shook my head, even though I had no clue how to save us. What Jen had done to Suko would not work on a whole Dragon army. Only a Divine Light Ice Storm could get them all fast. I shouted over the crosswinds, “When they arrive, summon an ice storm packed with Divine Light. It will slow their reflexes. I don’t know how it is done. But somewhere deep inside you—you do.”

  “I will try,” she shouted. Then she huddled over the screaming babies, trying to comfort them.

  My babies. Mine. I created an air pocket around my family to protect them from the lashing sand.

  I knew the Ice Storm wouldn’t work as well in the sixth realm. I really wished we weren’t in it.

  I moved further sideways away from Jen and the babies, at least four yards, hoping to draw the Dragons’ attention from her to me once they arrived. Jen lifted her upper body and looked at me. She screamed through the air pocket as if it were a glass jar. I could barely hear her, but I read her mind clearly. “Turn me to stardust!”

  Again, I shook my head, no. I shouted telepathically, The Divine Light Ice Storm. Now!

  I looked to the army, a tsunami of Dragons were nearly upon us. I watched and waited, heart pounding. How could I protect my family? How? How could I save earth? I assessed all the magic I knew, and all the power I had, and none of it would be enough to counter Quen-tan and a full Dragon army. I had to be clever. But too late. They were here.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Multitudes of clawed feet landed heavy on the beach, kicking up sand in a billow around Dragon haunches. Sand plastered my body, soaking my hair, and unfortunately because I gasped, my fangs were coated too. I wiped my teeth and tucked in my ethereal wings, scraping my mind for strategy.

  From shoreline to me, Dragons stood at least sixteen feet tall, spanning the beach as far as I could see, shoulder to shoulder. Thorny Dragon heads were poised for war with open snouts presenting rows of fangs and meat-eating teeth.

  In front of the army, Quen-tan stood before me, larger than the others. His iridescent blue-black chest puffed proudly. His spiked webbed wings spread like a fighter plane, dwarfing me.

  And when his wings drew in, there Diego stood, cocky with gloating Spanish face, black matador suit clean and pressed, dark cape clipped around his neck. He smiled, showing fang. “Saludos, Juan.”

  Fuck Diego.

  Behind Quen-tan was the gunmetal grey, slick-skinned Counsel of Six in a neat row. In one telepathic voice they said to me, You disappoint us—Ixion. Your human side has possessed you.

  I did fail. But I also won, even if I had to die to prove it.

  Jen remained in her huddled position over the babies, her back to the Dragons. Her body wavered in a trance. A glacial wall formed around her and the babies making them appear packed in an ice cube, though the ice did not seem to touch them. I gathered it was a kind of force field. The skies above turned misty white. The air condensed and became frigid. Ice crystals formed in the sky overhead.

  Quen-tan laughed as the Dragons raised their heads and simultaneously shot fire at the sky, warming the air. He looked at me and said, “She’s slow on the draw, nothing at all like she used to be.”

  My eyes slid her way. Blood was spreading into the lower portion of her gown. She was weak.

  I black light coated the telepathic thought I sent to her, Trust the goddess in you. Give yourself to her.

  Quen-tan said, “The sixth realm is our realm. And childbirth has damaged her. She will fail at all her endeavors.”

  Quen-tan, as I suspected, could penetrate my shields. Still, I commanded Jen telepathically, Give yourself to the Goddess.

  Quen-tan’s bony knuckle went to his heart. The other Dragons seeme
d distressed too. Blue light radiated from their chests, at least the ones I could see. She had placed unconditional, personal love in the lot of them. I was surprised she would, considering they wanted her obliterated. She was trying to pacify them.

  Quen-tan’s head swooped down to her like a watermelon to an orange.

  I tried to teleport my body in front of her, but I was grounded in the spot I stood. I tried to cast Black Light Shields around her, but they disappeared before manifesting fully. I tried to move into Quen-tan’s mind to give him a suggestion that his brain would explode, but I couldn’t get in. Fury sloshed in my stomach, growing wilder.

  Quen-tan hissed steam, melting the ice block, which also dissolved the air pocket I’d placed around my family.

  “Quen-tan,” I said, trying to distract him from her. “All her pieces are restored. She is no threat to our worlds now.”

  Holding his heart, he slid his eyes my way briefly. “She is a threat to me.” He swiped Jen’s back with a talon as she huddled over the babies. She cried out. Blood seeped from the diagonal gash on her back, spreading into the white gown. She turned her body toward him on her knees and screamed, “Get away from my babies!” as if Quen-tan would actually listen.

  Quen-tan and the Dragons appeared eased, the blue light gone from their chests. Quen-tan had succeeded in distracting her.

  Smoke blew out of Quen-tan’s nostrils in a large cloud over Jen, who was huddled over the babies once more. She coughed, and the babies coughed. The babies screamed and choked with munchkin vibrato voices, little limbs stretching and trembling with terror.