by A. L. Mengel
The pain was too much. There was only one way to heal her pain, and she only saw one option out of her depression.
Turning a sharp left onto Andelusia Avenue, she gunned the engine, sending the small car into a shaking frenzy, as the engine desperately tried to get the car up to speed - the breakneck speed that Paula was coaxing it to go. She turned the car right into an alley so fast that the passenger side of the car lifted off the ground.
Regaining speed she headed closer and closer, closing in on the end facing a dark brick wall, not lifting her foot off the gas pedal even for a moment, the car gained momentum and speed.
She saw the wall looming ahead, growing larger and closer in the windshield, like a saving wall that would heal her pain. Closer and closer it moved, growing larger in the viewing pane of the windshield.
As the car came past the point of no return, she closed her eyes. The tears streamed down her cheeks through her closed eyes. She opened her eyes, and she took her foot off the accelerator and the whine of the engine lowered for just a moment. She tried to pump the brakes.
But it was too late.
All she said right before she hit the wall was “Mother….” through her tears, and she heard Sonny and Cher finishing their duet on the radio.
CRASH!
And the only other sound that could be heard were the desperate cries of her daughter, as she was thrown from the back seat like a football, crashing through the windshield and meeting her death on the brick wall before them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As the sunlight slowly crept across the room, warming and illuminating all that it touched, Roberto had slowly opened his eyes. He had gradually awakened from his sleep. It had only been a short while before that Antoine had been there, but once the sun touched his face, his eyes fluttered open.
He looked down and saw a small, slightly wrinkled piece of paper, and at the same time noticed he was alone. He assumed that the note must have been from his strange suitor. He had been glad to see the note, but at the same time he was disappointed that Antoine was not there in the morning to greet him.
The note from Antoine fell on the floor as he rose; he saw this and silently decided to read the note once he had showered and cleaned up and was more awake and alert.
Roberto, though, could not get thoughts of Antoine out of his head. He felt that it was some sort of destiny, or perhaps fate working, that brought him and Antoine together. He could tell that Antoine was different.
Roberto returned to his room with a blue towel wrapped around his waist. He walked over to his bed and sat down, picked up the note, and read it.
My Dearest Roberto,
I love you. And I want to make you my creation. Together, we will be in unison as one forever. I will come to you tonight,
A
The hand that was holding the note slowly lowered to his lap as he looked up, forward, but not seeing anything in the room. Even with his eyes open, he saw Antoine’s face. He smiled to himself, revelling in the thought that Antoine felt the same way about him. It was too good to be true!
What did confuse him was why Antoine kept on addressing him as “his creation”. Antoine did not appear like he was much older than twenty, but Roberto figured that he could be older and just gifted with excellent genetics. Nevertheless, Roberto felt great and thought that the two of them would be fantastic together.
Roberto got up from where he was sitting and let the note fall to the floor. He snapped off the towel and began his daily dressing ritual, in a happy and giddy mood like someone who was in love. He wore his typical attire – baggy jeans that hung below his hips, a tight white tank top accentuated by an oversized jersey, and once dressed exited his room and headed towards the kitchen to get some breakfast.
Fortunately, Hernan had left for work hours ago. Once having a small breakfast of two strawberry pop tarts and a large glass of orange juice, he ran out the garage door to his small BMW convertible. He had to find Antoine before tonight, he had to see him; he wanted to surprise his new friend by visiting him and bringing him some roses, to seal their pact of a commitment to one another.
The screech of the tires made a black mark on the pavement with a small puff of rubbery smoke as Roberto’s small BMW peeled away.
Yes Antoine, you were right.
I am your demon. I am your demon and I am going to take over the world!
Thank you so much for creating me!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When Antoine and Roberto had still lay next to one another, after Hernan had run from the doorway where he dropped his drink, but before Roberto slept, they heard a bump from above; or a noise, the creaking of rafters here and there, letting them know that Hernan was still moving about in the house.
Roberto put his arms behind his head and sighed. “I hate him,” he said, and closed his eyes as the noises continued in the background.
“Yes,” Antoine replied. “I can feel your hatred.”
Antoine rose from the bed, and searched for his coat. He looked up at Roberto and paused. “I have a question for you.”
“What is that?” Roberto asked, sitting up in the bed expectantly.
“Well,” Antoine continued, “Do you want him dead?”
Roberto paused.
He had not considered that before. His mother was already long gone, and it seemed that Hernan always succeeded in making his life miserable. But he had never before considered killing the man. Killing anyone before had never crossed his mind, actually.
“Or, rather, shall I ask, do you think you are capable of killing him?”
Antoine shuffled to the other end of the room and leaned against the doorframe, looking over towards Roberto. “Let me leave you with that,” said Antoine, turning towards the door to leave the room.
With that, he quietly crept out of the room, silently as if he were a cat and shut the door behind him.
As Antoine left, Roberto’s eyes got heavier. Sleep was creeping up on him. He wanted to fight it, to be awake when Antoine returned from going to the bathroom or wherever he was going, but it was proving to be too much of an effort. Gradually reality faded away, and darkness and dreams quickly overtook his state of being.
*~*~*
Antoine floated down the hall elegantly and with determination. Traveling further from Roberto’s room he passed the bathroom door, and ascending the stairs he saw the door to the master bedroom at the end of the hall, slightly ajar letting some yellowish light into the dark hallway.
When Antoine reached the door, he stopped and listened. He heard the evening news, and Hernan snoring. Carefully opening the door, he entered the room. He saw the bedside lamp burning brightly, and Hernan sprawled across the bed, shirtless and snoring loudly, a giant midsection rising towards the ceiling with every breath like a small, pulsating mountain.
Antoine did not delay.
He immediately glided over to the bed, levitating above the sleeping man, and, looking down at him, saw in the man’s face what might have once been an innocent boy. A young man who dated his first love from high school, who once was gentle, loving and caring.
What happened to you, Hernan?
There your son is, downstairs. Sleeping below. He has been waiting for your love for so many years, but you haven’t had any love to give. He watched as you took your high school sweetheart down the path to hell…and he tried to save her from it by loving her. But now she is dead. It was too late.
Now she is dead.
So it’s just you and him. So will you be able to do it? Will you be able to love your son and treat him like the man he so wants you to? Sure, I was down there, I was taking away his pain, but it was only to give him a gift. It was to give him a gift that you never could, Hernan. It was to give him the gift of love and eternal life.
So do I think that you can change? Do I think that you can love Roberto for who he is and save him from his sins?
No.
And he quietly sunk his teeth in to Hernan’s neck.
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At that instant, Hernan’s eyes sprung open widely and he let out a horrid, deep throated scream. He started choking and coughing up blood. The scream did not do anything to stop Antoine. He drank and drank, as the colour in Hernan’s face began to drain rapidly, and his flailing and kicking slowly subsided.
Once Hernan stopped moving altogether and his eyes closed, Antoine sat back up on the bed in a kneeling position and looked down at the pathetic mess sprawled out before him.
“Welcome,” he said, with a bloody smile across his face, looking down at the corpse. “Welcome to my world, Hernan.”
With those words, Antoine rose, pulled some tissues from the bedside table and cleaned his face, silently closed the door, and quickly returned to Roberto’s room.
Roberto was sleeping soundly as if a baby.
He went over to the desk and found a small piece of paper and a pen, wrote a short note, and left it for Roberto to find in the morning. He quietly finished dressing and grabbed his keys, gliding silently down the stairs.
Then, Antoine slipped out undetected in the Miami night air.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Cathedral of the Gardens was the largest, most beautiful and ornate Catholic place of worship in Coral Gables. Towering over the city like a glistening centerpiece, the cream-colored stucco walls, ivory statuettes of the twelve Apostles, and stained glass windows commanded attention and awe. The Spanish architecture blended with traditional European style construction gathered light from above; like rays from the heavens highlighted this majestic house of the Lord.
Surrounded by lush tropical gardens comprised mostly of purple and white azaleas, it is located near the Venetian Pool and surrounded by weeping willow trees, palms, mango trees and orange bushes. The brilliant green grass framed the stone path leading up to the magnificent entryway, which was lined with more bright and vibrant tropical foliage. All of the gardens were meticulously manicured at all times.
It was truly the church of the wealthy and the wealthiest church; not only did the congregation donate thousands upon thousands of dollars to the coffers but also paid for quite extravagant living quarters for its clergy – despite their vows of poverty they had taken when ordained; but it did not matter.
This was Coral Gables.
It was the “Beverly Hills of Miami”, and things “just ran differently here.” The church reflected the status of the towns’ citizens. Nonetheless, it was still so beautiful with towering stained glass windows, overlooking multiple statues rising from ornate and sculpted gardens it looked to be a work of art.
Antoine Nagevesh strolled quietly down the sidewalk that bordered the Cathedral, and although he did not usually venture inside, he knew he needed to tonight.
It was not often that Antoine would venture into the house of God. He rarely did during his mortal life, and now it was even a more rare occasion. He knew, though, that he was being called. He was being called to come. And when he was being called, he did not listen to the orders from God to stay out of his territory. But then, he sometimes wondered who the orders were actually coming from.
Turning up the path, he ascended the stairs, passing giant mortar columns and marble flooring, into the grand entryway, past the rounded doors of mahogany, into the foyer and through a second set of stained glass doors. The worshipping area was lined with giant pews, marble floors, with the Stations of the Cross carved in stone bordering the top of the walls, against the ceiling.
And looking down the aisle, he saw a woman, lying on the floor in front of the steps to the Altar, lying in a heaping mess on the floor. He strode towards the woman, seeing her face buried in her hands, crying quietly and sniffling.
“Why do you weep, dear Paula?” he asked softly.
She did not answer. He knelt down next to her, placed his hand on her head.
“That is okay. You do not have to answer. I know why you cry so much.”
“I did not realize what I was doing…” She turned her head towards Antoine, and from her viewpoint, looking up on him, she saw the light behind him, making him glow – to her he truly looked like a saving angel.
“I killed my child,” she said, beginning to sob again, burying her face in her arms. “I killed my child!”
Antoine bent down, and gently picked her up in his strong arms. He drew her close to his body, and placed her head on his chest, wrapping his arms around her small, shivering body. He then ran his fingers through her hair, comforting her and placing a kiss on her forehead.
“You did not know,” he said. “You were influenced by a force greater than you will know. This was willed to happen.”
He placed her on the floor, on her back, and she gazed up at his seductive eyes. He took her hand and led her out from the Cathedral.
“Let me be with you, Paula. I will take away your pain.”
He brought her into a clearing of bushes, and he started to unbutton his shirt, one by one, slowly, as he spoke to Paula: “You have dealt with this pain all of your life. Only you can let me in. You need me to take it away from you and show you the pleasures that you need right now.”
He let his shirt fall off of his shoulders, and the shirt dropped to the ground; Paula’s eyes followed the shirt as it floated slowly downwards.
And then she looked into his eyes.
Antoine held his gaze for a moment, their gaze locked.
“It is only you who can accept this offer of passion, but I will show you passion that you have never seen before, take you to other worlds and realms sending you over the edge of exquisiteness.”
As she lay back on the cool grass, she propped herself up on her elbows.
She could not take her eyes off of Antoine. She continued to stare in his eyes, and thought for a moment that his pupils were moving. For a moment, for just a fleeting moment, she felt a creep of doubt. She thought for that moment that maybe Antoine was not a fraud; maybe he was in fact the dark creature that people claimed him to be.
Now he was crouched before her. He was the most beautiful creature that she had ever laid eyes on.
And what about his eyes? It did not matter.
Antoine took control of the situation; laying her out and caressing her breasts, he fluttered his hand along her thigh. He lightly kissed her neck. “Take me, you will not regret it. Let me heal you.”
As he kissed her neck, he began to slowly run his free hand under her shirt, caressing the mounds of her breasts, as he discreetly kicked off his boots. For a moment, he stopped and looked her in the eyes.
“Now, it is time, dear one. It is time for your pain to leave you forever.”
He got up on his knees, and towered over her.
She looked in his eyes one more time, looking straight up the chest of this dark mysterious creature.
Paula then sat up and took her hands to Antoine’s belt. Antoine no longer said a word. He no longer needed to. And that was when Antoine took away her pain.
He lowered himself and began to kiss and undress her, pulling her t shirt over her head, revealing her supple breasts, her soft pale skin, taking his tongue between the cleavage, and trailing it down to her waistline, gently undoing her jeans, as she squirmed with the feeling and joy of being with Antoine.
And when he entered her, she was overtaken. She had never experienced anything like it; no other lover had ever amounted to Antoine.
Antoine’s long and livery tongue lapped at the crevice of her chest, his cold saliva burning her skin, mixing with her hot sweat. The faster and more determined he moved; the deeper, the more he physically transformed above her; his skin changing to a scaly green and brown.
Giant wings sprouted above them spanning the length of the clearing, and the couple began to levitate. The monster above her carried her into the sky, and as Antoine looked up from his prey momentarily, he was staring in the face of a statue of Christ.
He stopped for a moment. Paula froze.
The statue stared at him in suspended animation, holding a grip on him.
Grimacing and struggling to get free, the two continued to ascend.
Floating away and upwards they gathered speed and Antoine continued as they floated over Andelusia, up and into and through the clouds hovering over the city of Miami.
Her pain was healed.
All the pain that Dominick caused; the pain of the death of her child, her drinking, growing up with an abusive father; all that was washed away as she flew with Antoine above the vibrant, glowing metropolis. It all seemed so beautiful from that height, the glistening lights of the skyscrapers, the beauty of the glistening water, dancing in the moonlight. The lights of the cars, moving about the city streets and highways all off to some unknown destination.
What a way to spend an evening, what a way to enjoy and revel in the love and pleasure that someone like him can bring a woman!
Oh, Antoine!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Roberto stood in total darkness.
The mysterious man disappeared into the enveloping blackness of the small hallway before him. Roberto did not know nor could he fathom what type of building this actually was. This looked like no club he had ever seen before. Although they went in through a side entrance, it felt like the space had changed around him. He didn’t feel like the hallway was the same as when he entered. That much he felt deeply. And the whole feeling of the building conveyed a feeling of death.
He fished through his jeans pockets, and found a lighter.
Along the hallway on both sides were doors, doors leading to the unknown, doors leading to places or rooms that Roberto had no idea where they had gone. He struggled in the darkness to see the man, but he could barely make out a shadow. He felt all alone. And all he could do was walk forward, for the door he had entered through was no longer there.
Shuffling forward on his feet slowly, he could not determine what direction he was going. He did not feel that he made any turns in the hallway, but again, he could not tell if the hallway itself was turning as he moved. Roberto had no idea how far ahead the man had gone, and he had no idea which direction he was headed. He winced at the searing hot pain on his thumb as the lighter heated up; he cursed and let it cool.