An Angel's Touch

by Susan D. Kalior

  “Ah,” I said, not sure how his kind felt about Tazmarks, “yeah?”

  And in his language we spoke on. He asked, “What are you doing here?”

  I strained to keep my head turned up to him while he held me by my boot. “Trying to save the world?”

  “Oh,” he said, “need help?”

  “Ah, sure,” I said, “why not? I pulled a muscle in my wing, so I could use a lift. I hope you have some speed.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Then my boot slipped off my foot and I plummeted downward, heading for the cotton candy center of the fifth realm—the sweetness of which would certainly kill me.

  My wing was not operating properly, and like before, I couldn’t stop the fall. Suddenly a weight came up beneath me and I was on the flying bull.

  “You said you needed a lift?” The voice belonged to the bull.

  “Yeah,” I said, “thanks.” I was saying thanks a lot lately. It hurt my tongue.

  I saw Diego far ahead in the distance, smoke trailing behind him. The Angels, looking more themselves now, looped about the blue green sky giving him a merry chase. But for how long? Diego was full of tricks.

  I said to the bull, “Follow that trail.”

  The bull snorted, pawing his human hands in the air as a bull would the ground before charging. He drew his head back as if ready to streak forward into hyperspace. And then we took off, bobbing along at a painful, almost slow motion gate.

  “Fuck,” I groaned, staring at the sparkles and grey smoke in the far, far distance, all too close to each other. I hoped Diego had been long in the fifth realm, as Taz’s don’t fair well here. I wondered if it was getting to him. It was already getting to me.

  “Is this all you’ve got?” I shouted to the bull.

  “What do you expect? I weigh like a thousand pounds.” Then he let out a bull cry, and suddenly my head felt swarmed with bees, and I realized it was a swarm of tiny yellow wasp pixies with actual stingers on their noses.

  “Need help?” the Queen said in the tiniest voice in Pixie language. Had my hearing not been so acute, I would have thought she could not talk.

  The bull said in Pixie, “Yeah, he’s trying to save the world.”

  The bright yellow pixie Queen fluttered in front of my eyes. “What can we do?”

  I pointed to Diego in the distance and said in Pixie, “We must stop the other Taz from chasing the Angels. They hold precious cargo, two silver boxes. And the Tazmark—he has a silver box too. I need all three boxes.”

  The Queen nodded, and her fat yellow swarm zipped into the distance, over to Diego, and engulfed him. Diego looked like a dim shadow in all that brightness. Pink and yellow sparks sprayed out from the mass.

  The shadow spun about and started falling, but shifted quickly into the sixth realm, disappearing.

  The Angels, Pink and Yellow, and the swarm of wasp pixies zipped back to me and the bull.

  Each Angel held out a silver box to me. I took them, clasping one in each hand as if I were holding onto my very life.

  The wasp pixie Queen fluttered in front of my eyes again, and proclaimed sadly, “The Tazmark escaped with the third silver box. I am sorry.”

  I nodded. “Thanks anyway.” Oh, my aching tongue. But, I was happy to have Jen’s love and memories back.

  “You’re welcome,” said the Queen in her munchkin voice. Then the swarm flew away as quickly as they had come.

  Pink cried out sadly, “But Orange, he still has Orange.”

  Yellow said, “And she is in there with whatever was taken from Jenséa.”

  “I will take care of it,” I said, holding up my box filled hands, “but, thanks for these.” My tongue, my tongue.

  I held the boxes tight, afraid to manifest them anywhere, for though Shens could not open the boxes—any diabolical being could.

  Guess I’d come a long way, or lost ground. My proud independence had deteriorated to dependence on almost everyone, from Shens, to Tazmarks, to bulls and pixies. My head swam with drunken woe. And I needed to get out of the fifth realm, but my wing was inoperable.

  I looked to the Angels. “I don’t suppose you could transport me to Jen?”

  They looked at each other and then me, shaking their heads.

  “You’re big,” said Pink.

  “Huge,” said Yellow.

  “And your energy is too sinister for us to withstand by being that close,” said Pink.

  I knew that fifth realm creatures could not exit the fifth realm, so how was I to get back to Jen?

  I growled. Aruka would have to rescue me—again. Aruka, I called telepathically with a hint of dismal, I need a ride.”

  Aruka appeared, hovering next to me in the air. Her purple gown sparkled little silver diamond shapes in the fifth realm, and her long black hair looked purpley. “Oh Juan, you are so needy.”

  I scowled at her, a bit embarrassed, sitting on a bull who tread the air.

  She said, “Hug mommy now.”

  I reached over and Aruka pulled me off the bull into her arms. I had no smart remarks left in me. I had to get to Jen. “Thanks Bull,” I said. Ah, my . . . tongue.

  “Glad I could help,” he said in a corny way.

  I really hated the fifth realm.

  With Aruka holding me, we disappeared and landed in a less than eloquent manner next to Jen. I departed from mom quickly, her fangs just too close for comfort. Not that she would try anything just now—but still.

  Next to Jen, the High Lama Khandro and André sat cross-legged on the warm sand, maroon robed shoulder to striped multi-colored serape shoulder. Next to André sat Charlotte, bundled in her blue sweater, legs daintily to the side. Pink and Yellow hovered in the air over Jen's head.

  Charlotte glanced at the Angels, and then blurted to me, “Did you retrieve what Diego stole?”

  I held up the boxes. “Two out of three.”

  “At least that is something,” André said.

  The High Lama Khandro nodded. “It is a lot.”

  Charlotte said, “How did you retrieve the boxes?”

  I just couldn’t say, a winged bull and a swarm of wasp pixies helped me, so I started to say, “I don’t want to talk —”

  “—a bull and a swarm of wasp pixies helped him,” said Pink.

  I glared at her.

  The High Lama Khandro said to me, “Oh, this is good for you.”

  Changing the subject, I said, “Where are the others?”

  Aruka replied, “Working on their offense.”

  I asked her, “How are we doing on the Black Box?”

  Aruka answered, “We still have some time.”

  I looked down upon Jen’s empty face. I held my hands over her chest and magically opened the silver boxes, tipping them upside down. Out poured a gold blob, and a silver blob. The blobs sank into her gown and skin and into her being. She glowed gold and silver for a moment before looking normal again. At least her love was back. At least her memories were returned. But what else had Diego taken that he still possessed?

  Charlotte rose and stepped up to me. “Your wing is drooping.”

  “You can see it?” I asked.

  “Wings are my specialty. One day I shall reveal more about that. But, for now,” she stepped around to my back, “I shall heal—” she paused, “the pulled muscle that controls your wing.”

  “Th. . . a. . . n . . . ks,” I said again, spraining my tongue.

  As Charlotte sent blue healing light into my wing from her wizened hands, I wondered who I was anymore. I hardly recognized myself. And there was a sadness about that. I yearned for the days of plotting mass destruction, of hissing fire on sleepy villages, and burning flesh toasty crisp. Was all that changing? Would I cease to know such joys?

  Charlotte stepped back. “There now, good as new.”

  I just couldn’t say thanks again, so I turned to her and nodded. A horsefly buzzed around her head. She waved her hand to shoo it away. It flew down around Jen’s closed eyes, and then l
anded on her chest, clinging to a pleat in her sky blue dress.

  The fly reminded me of Diego, both a nuisance. What had Diego taken from her? I must find out. Perhaps knowing might help me retrieve it. I knelt to her, staring at her inert face. I moved my mind into her being with my tenth level power searching for what wasn’t right. I traveled in the mazes of blue-white light and snow goddess scenes. In a little corner, I saw her memories before she met me, after she met me, and now. Her memories had been restored. I saw blue light stretching from the core of her heart to her forehead. Unconditional love was there; she could love me unconditionally once more. Diego could not have taken her Divine Love for it would have incinerated him. Ah—there was putrid yellow-grey hole gaping from heart to solar plexus. It was her motivation. “He took her motivation,” I said out loud. “Without that, she will have no impetus to fight.”

  I rose and said, “Question is, where is Diego now?” I scanned the faces of those present. “Anyone?”

  They shook their heads, even the Angels.

  Pink said, “We Angels can usually find each other anywhere, except that silver box takes Orange off our radar.”

  I sighed, for even with all our powers, we could not sense Diego. What to do. What to do. There must be a way beyond what is known to locate Diego. I looked down at Jen’s sleeping face, at the sweat beads on her eyelids and the curve of her neck, the neck I almost broke. Oh Jen.

  I squatted next to her, concentrating on where her motivation might be. Oh, goddess, where is your motivation? I grazed my finger down the side of her windpipe to the hollow of her throat. My fingers were on the chain of the dragon talisman, next to the horsefly still clinging to a pleat. Hmm, the talisman. I brushed the big old horse fly off her chest. Had it been trying to tell me something?

  I slid my hand beneath the talisman and held it. I stared into the red dragon eyes. Oh Ancients of the Dragon World, I draw upon the energy from which Dragons were born. Guide me to Diego. The talisman grew supernaturally hot, almost burning my hand. I moved my energy essence into the eyes. Take me to Diego.

  My forehead felt suctioned. Then I felt suctioned. And for a moment, I lost my breath. Then everything was going fast. I was going fast like a bullet fired from a gun. I was in a vacuum, highly volatile and made unstable by me being in it. Steady now, steady, focus. Any slight turn or imbalance would make this passage a blender, and me mincemeat. As long as I could blend with the force I was in, I could survive. Positive mass. Space-time closing in. Exotic matter. G-force. Negative mass.

  I blasted into quiet space, spinning in slow motion some distance from my expulsion. Merging with space particles now. Hydrogen plasma. Electromagnetic radiation.

  I just hoped Diego didn’t blast me before I could gain equilibrium. I did not sense him. Perhaps I had more chasing to do. My heart beat in my ears as my hair slow motion brushed across my face in varying directions. As I slowly spun upside down and downside up, I thought of Diego: his great orchestration and grand manipulation of my demise from Jen. He’d led me to restore her goddess powers, and to nearly kill her, and to so very nearly erase her path forever. Diego. He had altered the course of my story with her, resurrecting a past and forcing us both into being something greater than either of us wanted: a Goddess of Divine Love and a God of Chaos. Days of old. It did not work between us then. Oh why could he not let it work between us now! I, like most, had been swept into riptide currents that facilitate fictions and take us so far away from our quintessential selves, that what matters, what really matters—is in peril. Jen and I just wanted to come home again, come home to ourselves, before the plays had played. But the plays had played, and now they must play out. An uncertain ending. A cataclysmic undoing, the ultimate destruction—ah to play the play.

  I finally evened out. My equilibrium was back. Stars salted the sky heavily. I saw my comet again, the one I’d seen when I was on my way to destroy Chelt. That meant I was in the Draco Constellation. I concentrated on Diego. He must be heading for Dracovar Prime to stash Jen’s stolen motivation in a vault there.

  I concentrated hard. D i e g o. Something broke up before me like an old crumbling chocolate bar. I had unwittingly taken down a Black Wall Shield, for there in the distance Diego was flying away.

  I was still trying to adapt to space travel. The last time I’d done it, the Dragons helped me. I tried to race toward Diego, but I didn’t know how to move like that in zero gravity. On earth, I summoned things to empower me, like molten lava, or lightning bolts. Hmm. What would happen if I focused on my comet? I drew upon the energy of the orbit trying to displace time and space and somehow create an orbit of my own. I closed my eyes. Oh energy that propels the dirty snowball, I summon thee. Navitas ut verus cometes, EGO voco thee. I fell into the energy of the comet, the velocity, the orbit. Propel me to Diego! Bring me to Diego!

  “You have so much to learn.”

  I opened my eyes. Diego was in front of me with an angered expression.

  “However, you did intercept my trajectory with your foiled magic, and I dare say you almost got that dirty snowball on my tail, so I will get rid of you now.”

  I probed his body with my mind, searching for the silver box.

  He held up his fisted hand, the silver box showing between his fingers. “Looking for this?”

  I narrowed an eye, wondering if I could manifest it to my hand.

  “You cannot,” he said, reading my mind, “It’s a lack of gravity thing. However, I am impressed that you broke through my shield, and survived the time-space passage you apparently took to find me, without any help at all.”

  I said, “You are more powerful than I dreamed, Diego.”

  “I am often underestimated,” his eye glinted, “even by Quen-tan. Actually, you have helped me. With Quen-tan gone, now I can easily reign over the Dracovar Worlds.”

  “Ah, you planned that all along, didn’t you? You wanted to use me to eradicate the goddess. Then you were going to put me into a Black Box, and take power of the Dracovar Worlds.”

  “Took me ten thousand years to truly overthrow you—but,” he raised a brow, “I am the best. Better than you. Your desire to dally with love weakens you—always. For ruler, I am a better pick.”

  I eyed the box. “You were on your way to Dracovar Prime to put Jen’s motivation in the vault.”

  “Yes. And you cannot stop me, Juan. I’ve got you. And now I will get you. I felt it flash in his mind, a Black Box. He was going to Black Box me here in outer space.

  I hadn’t learned how to do that yet, but I threw a haphazard idea of a Black Box at him anyway. It seemed to collide with the one he threw at me. But then he sent another, and I tried again, managing barely to block his. I knew mine was not in right formation or even the right substance, but it was serving as a bit of shield. What else could I do? Damn, if I could only get some propulsion! I should be able to merge with anything and extract energy. Even in space. Come on comet, give me power.

  Behind Diego, a bright round light grew large, making his face look dark. Oh damn. I am non-volatile grains, frozen gases, meteoritic dust, ionized magnesium. Diego threw another Black Box at me. Its vacuous darkness sucked me in hard, congealing slowly around me. My vision dimmed, like looking through a black scarf.

  Diego was laughing at me, holding the silver box up, taunting. The comet smashed into Diego taking him with it like a bug on a windshield, away . . . away. My silver box! I scanned the space through my dimming vision where Diego once was. Catching my eye in the distance, the silver box, looking shadowy to me, floated away in outer space. Being magically forged, it was probably indestructible.

  The Black Box thickened and was done congealing. I could see nothing, hear nothing. I was doomed. But at least Diego was dead. He’d be mostly vaporized by now. He could have merged with the comet had he been concentrating, but he was distracted and now he was destructed.

  By wanting to experience the comet, I had somehow pulled its orbit to me, or perhaps I had moved toward it.
However, if I’d completely merged with it, right now, I’d be on the ride of my life, or at the very least I’d have had the energy to propel myself in space. Given that I hadn’t fully merged, ironically, the Black Box had saved me from Diego’s fate. But now the Black Box had me, and Jen's motivation was somewhere—out there . . .

  Fuck.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Here I was again, in my least favorite place, and not even a single spirit to sustain me. I’d blown them all out into Quen-tan, and never had the chance to replenish. All telepathic signals, all magics, were sealed in the Black Box, so even if I could be helped, my call would be short-circuited. And the only one who could help me would be Jen, even though she’d never flown into outer space before, at least not in her present form. She may not realize she could—that her Goddess makeup would change her to accommodate unearthly journeys. And even if she could make the flight, without her motivation, why would she even try? Oh, my goddess of rain and snow. I wish you were here with me. I wish you could free me.

  Space was a funny place. Time seemed to stop out here. I could not feel it moving, not minutes, or even seconds. I could not tell if I had been in the Black Box, a minute, a day, or a month—only eternal moments.

  All hell was probably breaking out on earth by now. The worst part? I was missing it.

  Was Jen all right? Or dead? And what of the Shens? How were the other Tazmarks fairing? Hell, earth could be gone for all I knew. I was sealed in here—sealed.

  In time, even Diego would be reborn. Me? No. My body would die, but my essence would be captured in here . . . forever.

  The High Lama Khandro kept saying, an impasse is merely a clouded perception. I guess meaning there are no impasses, not really, only seemingly so.

  Hoping a solution would arrive, I folded my hands over my solar plexus, no longer able to tell if I was horizontal or vertical. My body seemed to float within the Black Box. The ionic composition of my form had lightened. I went into a kind of stasis, drifting down, drifting in, down—in, lighter, lighter. I had a dream of sorts.