Succubus Tear (Triune promise)

by Andreas Wiesemann

  She knew the endearment as only a master craftsman could have, as Charlie sanded, polished, and polished the metal, even in places where it would not show.

  “May Cain treasure you, as much as you treasure him…”

  As he placed an expensive finishing chemical that would keep the metal shining for years if not decades.

  “Sorry…oh, Charlie, I am so sorry.” Al’bah wept, watching the first real gift she ever received crumble in her hands. “Oh…oh…if I only knew. Please forgive me.”

  At last, it was done. Al’bah closed her fingers around a small puff of ash and dust in her hands. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “Forgive me, Charlie, I have wronged you. I have misjudged you.”

  Al’bah took in a deep sigh and opened her eyes; this time she did not shy away from the sight of her Bond in agony. “My Bond, my love,” Al’bah whispered as she kneeled and placed her hands in his.

  “Come back to me.” Al’bah closed her eyes and reached across the spaces and non-spaces of existence and pulled.

  “No more uncertainty,” she whispered, wiping away scarlet from her eyes and smiling mouth. “Either we are reunited, or we are broken, here and now.”

  ***

  After several- Moments? Hours? Days? Eons? -did Al’bah at last open her eyes. On shaking legs she stood, wobbling to the kitchen sink, and threw up. After several moments she washed the blood from her face and patted herself dry with a towel.

  “Charlie, thank you,” Al’bah whispered, settling her head in Cain’s lap. “Your comb is—was—so beautiful. So…”

  Al’bah could not go on; her words dissolved into sighing, and her sighs into tears. After several moments, Al’bah at last calmed down enough, and held her breath. Her energy was spent. She was dying. It was all up to Cain now; she could do no more. Either Cain would recover and bring her right along with him, or they would die together.

  How aware of breath I am, Al’bah thought disjointedly. Heartbeat, breath, sight, sound! Oh! How it all fades, I can feel it fade. Cain, forgive me, I was not strong enough! Cain, please…

  Al’bah sighed; her breath exhaled slower than any other, and stopped.

  ***

  “Al’bah.”

  “Al’bah,” the voice called again.

  With a violent coughing gasp, Al’bah raised her head off of Cain’s lap, still hearing the scream of Taint’s fury ringing in her ears.

  “Cain?” Al’bah said, looking into his face that was not only awake but aware of her presence.

  “Would you leave me with a broken heart?” Cain asked in a raspy voice, still thick with slime.

  “I—Cain, I…”

  Cain smiled slightly and closed his eyes.

  ***

  Two days later, Cain slowly became aware that he was staring at a woman sitting across from him. Just as slow was his awareness of being naked. Cain’s thoughts were just about to penetrate the fuzziness that clogged his thinking when the woman spoke, startling him half to death.

  “Ah, you’re awake. You’re lucky to be alive there, Cain.”

  In spite of his nakedness, Cain jumped to his feet—or at least he tried to. He was covered by several heavy blankets and—

  Am I tied to the chair?

  All he could manage was a feeble shifting of his body that sent spears of pain though his cramped muscles. After what seemed like forever, Cain opened his eyes; the woman had not moved, still staring at him.

  “Who are you?” he asked, amazed at how much energy he had to use to get the words out.

  “I am Serenna, Amidres’ Wells’s wife, at your service,” she said with a slight nod of her head.

  The fog within Cain’s thinking lifted a little. “Al’bah?” he panted. “She—is she?”

  “Your fiancée is safe and well. She must love you very much. But even love has its limits. Staying by your side and caring for you five days nonstop without sleep will take its toll on even the strongest of minds and bodies.”

  “Five—” The rest was cut off by cries of pain as Cain tried to get up and was thoroughly punished by his body yet again.

  “Easy there! I would say that you’re going to recover, but not if you keep trying to tear apart your body.”

  Serenna went to the fireplace and ladled some liquid from the hanging pot into a bowl. She swirled the bowl for a moment and tipped it toward his lips. Cain’s body rejoiced at the warm beef soup that poured down his throat. Serenna alternated between feeding him soup and lukewarm water.

  “Thank you,” Cain said, feeling his strength returning, but not nearly enough for him to even want to get up from his seat. “What happened to me?” he asked, trying to look around.

  “You? Why, just the worst bacterial pneumonia I have ever seen,” Serenna said, taking his bowl and wiping his face with a washcloth, making him realize how much facial hair had grown since he started his desert trek. “By all rights you should have been dead by now. Yours is the first ever I have seen so ill, and come out alive.”

  Ugh! I need a shave. “How did you know it was—”

  “Bacterial? Pneumonia? I used to be a nurse practitioner, so I have a decent understanding of medicine. And because the antibiotics worked,” Serenna said while tossing the cloth away and reaching for a radio. “If it wasn’t, or if it was anything else, you wouldn’t be alive.” She clicked a button on a radio that sat upon a countertop.

  “Amidres’?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Our guest is awake and is aware.”

  “Thank you.”

  She put the radio down and looked into Cain’s eyes; they were a soft brown, full of care, but with an accusatory edge.

  “Cain Lamentson, I know who you are. I know why you are down here.” She said; her voice gained a hard edge as she continued to speak. “My husband believes the story Al’bah tells him, but it is obvious to the both of us that she is leaving out a great deal. So I want to hear you tell the truth to the people who saved your life.”

  She narrowed her eyes and placed her face an inch from Cain’s. “Is it true? Did you kill innocent lives?”

  Cain kept his eyes locked to Serenna’s and knew the double meaning the question had, and he answered with a heart full of peace. “No, not even guilty lives.”

  Serenna’s carefully neutral expression seemed frozen as she slowly withdrew, her eyes blinking a little faster than before. “I will wake Al’bah,” she said as she left the room.

  Cain watched her go, and his eyes roamed the room he was in. It was a large house to be sure, built entirely of logs, perhaps cedar, if his nose was correct. The fireplace was actually in the middle of the room, open on two sides, on a stone hearth that surrounded it four full feet in any direction. There was a tangle of blankets on the floor on a spot not too far away from where he was that smelled like Al’bah.

  The furniture seemed to have been handmade and had the same color and texture as the floor and walls. The décor was Spartan, but everything from the mantle of the fireplace, the furniture, to the doors—everything he could see—was a work of art that would have made decorations unsightly. There was a flash of movement and a squawky voice.

  “Cain! You are awake!” Al’bah threw herself upon Cain’s body and almost toppled the chair with Cain on it.

  “Al’bah! Ow!” Cain yelped, as she had started yet another chain of painful convulsions in his muscles.

  “Sorry, sorry!” she said, touching his face, kissing his lips. Her eyes were dull, and her skin was no longer the tone of caramel, but rather a pale, muddy brown color that was a bruised purple under her eyes. Even her hair seemed out of sorts.

  “Do I look as bad as I feel?” he said with a weak grin.

  Al’bah just smiled. “Happy!”

  “What happened?” Cain said, already feeling sleep creep up on his senses.

  Al’bah was just about to answer when Serenna spoke.

  “Tell him tomorrow, Al’bah. Cain, you just got over what was almost a fatal inf
ection, and night will be upon us soon. The very act of waking up and speaking, even after nearly eighteen hours of unbroken sleep, has drained you. And you, Al’bah, you have not slept like I asked you.”

  Serenna put a thermometer in Cain’s mouth and after a moment took it out. “One-oh-one point six,” she said out loud. “You are not completely better yet. Sleep, and if you feel up to it, you can try to stand and move about in the morning.” She grasped the cloth that kept Cain tied up to the chair and pulled it free.

  “I do not want to leave his side,” Al’bah said quietly, never taking her eyes off of Cain.

  “I will not force you, but rest, Al’bah. No good will come from staying awake and watching someone sleep when you need it yourself.”

  Serenna turned and left the two of them alone.

  Cain yawned and involuntarily stretched, but this time the pain did not come at him as savagely as before. His consciousness started to go into the place just before one begins to dream. To the places where memories are the receding tide taking one along to the sea of dreaming. Cain took one last sigh and exhaled a single word before sleep; real sleep took him rather than the black uncertainty of unconsciousness.

  “Al’bah.”

  ***

  Al’bah stared at Cain for a long time before she realized he went to sleep. Oh! How grateful she was for Cain to still be alive! And to Serenna and Amidres’, who had taken them in, regardless of knowing about who they were and the fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on their heads.

  Al’bah had told them as much as she could, but knew that to reveal everything would be unsettling, to say the least. She settled down on her blankets as sleep came for her.

  Thank you, she said in her mind, hoping the Creator would hear her, hoping that the Creator would know of her gratitude which spilled out of her eyes. To think that the Creator would still show His mercy to the punished! Or perhaps the Creator was just looking out for Cain. Now that was a thought.

  Whichever way it was, I am grateful for your mercy, for your blessing. Thank you…thank you…thank…

  Al’bah fell asleep for the first time in days.

  Chapter 59

  The End of Strength

  “Cain! You would do well to remember that Al’bah’s efforts saved your life! If you like, I can give you a check for a hundred thousand dollars and show you the door! Much good it would do you!”

  —Serenna Wells

  Cain opened his eyes, awakened by the sound of voices, and looked around. He turned his head to see Serenna and Amidres’ cooking breakfast. He looked to the floor and spotted Al’bah still asleep. He tried to push the blankets off and was just barely able to do so.

  “I—oh! Cain!” Serenna cried out, turning away, making Cain realize he was still naked.

  Amidres’ looked up to Cain and then to Serenna. He laughed as he walked out of the kitchen. Cain caught a glimpse of Serenna’s red face just before the door closed. “Don’t know why she is so embarrassed,” Amidres’ said, covering his lower half. “She and Al’bah had seen plenty of you these last couple of days.”

  “Hmmm?” Al’bah said groggily from the floor.

  “Ah, and speaking of the lovely young lady,” Amidres’ said, offering his hand to allow Al’bah to stand. “You will forgive me if I insist that we get Cain cleaned up?”

  “I will do it,” Al’bah said happily.

  “Al’bah, you will throw out your back if you keep carrying Cain’s weight the way you do,” Amidres’ said as he slung one of Cain’s arms over his shoulder.

  “I am strong, it is better this way,” Al’bah said softly, standing taller than Amidres’ could with Cain’s weight.

  Amidres’ scoffed. “Youth, think you have it all. Very well. I’ll at least get the door.”

  All the while, Cain gritted his teeth and fought against the overwhelming urge to cry out in pain. His muscles were so cramped from sitting so unnaturally that he wondered if his joints or his back might be permanently damaged. At last the torturous journey to the bathroom was over, and Cain was seated on the toilet.

  “I will manage from here, thank you,” Al’bah said with a large smile.

  “Shout if you need anything,” Amidres’ said as he exited the bathroom.

  As soon as the door was closed, Al’bah removed her shirt and brought her wings forth and picked Cain up, cradling him like a small child, “Easy, my love. Relax. I have you in my strength.”

  Cain noticed how Al’bah’s wings had folded over his body as before, seeming to melt within his own flesh. The familiar sensation of euphoria came quickly, and it started to combat the savage pain that was everywhere.

  “Thank you,” Cain panted. “I am hurt.”

  “I know,” Al’bah shushed. She extended her foot and turned on the hot water to the tub faucet and with another deft motion activated the drain plug. “Hot water,” she said happily as she carried Cain effortlessly into the tub. Once in the water, her wings unraveled themselves from Cain’s flesh and were drawn into her torso.

  “Al’bah, how strong are you anyway?” Cain said, wincing slightly as the pain started to return.

  “I do not know.” Al’bah grabbed the cleanser and washrag. “I am quite strong in spiritual terms, considering that I am over six thousand of your years old. Why? Is it unnatural for humans to be as strong as I?”

  “Yes. Even at my prime, I don’t think I could carry myself with the ease you do.”

  Al’bah shrugged as she started to scrub Cain’s body and hair. “You will feel better once you are clean. We did not dare to bathe you when you were ill.”

  “The second time, too,” Cain grumbled. “Is there significance to being out for five days?”

  “I do not know.”

  Cain splashed water over his face to get the soap out of his eyes. “But I bet you have an idea; you always do. Walter’s appointment card read for five o’clock. The ordeal at the hotel was five days and here was five days.”

  “I know of no significance to the number five as it concerns mortality.”

  Cain opened his mouth to ask more questions, but what difference would it make? He nodded and held out his hand for the washrag, wanting to wash himself.

  Al’bah handed over the washrag and watched as Cain attempted to clean himself. He quickly miscalculated his motions and ended up with a face full of soap again.

  No, not that! Not that!

  Cain sneezed, and his body instantly and immediately filled with horrible agony.

  He tried to hold in his next sneeze, but a held-in sneeze became a harsh cough, bringing a worse crescendo of pain.

  He couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t see!

  I’m going to die! This is it! I can’t stop it!

  He sneezed again, no longer able to tell his muscles to do anything. Cain choked on the blood in his mouth and thrashed slightly in the tub, making his pain worse. He felt the final sneeze coming, and as always the last one was the worst. Just before he started to take in the breath that would have killed him from the pain, he felt Al’bah blow her breath through his nose.

  An immediate sense of calm ran through his body and eliminated the reflex to sneeze. The relief only lasted an instant as the violent spasms that were caused by sneezing bit their savage teeth into Cain’s flesh.

  “Oh God! It hurts! Al’bah! Please!”

  Al’bah scooted forward and took him into her arms. She positioned his body so that he could relax. “Easy, my Bond, my love. Gently now. I am weak, too. I cannot ease your pain permanently without risking my life,” Al’bah whispered into his ear, holding him still against his trembling.

  Tears started to pour from his eyes, and his breathing turned into quiet sobbing. His body was wasted; he couldn’t even fight tears or hold back his cries, for the pain it would cause him. They just flowed from his body, so naked and ashamed, revealing the depths of all his weaknesses now that his strength had left him. And yet a small part of him rejoiced in the comfort he received from Al’bah’s tender whisp
ers. The soothing quality of her caress, and the way she could see him be so pathetic and not be judgmental, but so feminine in her care.

  “What happens now?” Cain said without thinking, with a trembling voice. Unaware of what his words meant or to whom he was speaking to.

  “We let the sun rise and the moon sing. We do our best, and let it stand before judgment,” Al’bah responded, holding Cain all the tighter to her body, bringing a sense of relief, allowing sleep to come.

  “And wait,” she said sadly. “And wait for the mercy that was promised.”

  Cain trembled and relaxed at last under Al’bah’s gentle kisses upon his neck and head as the warmth carried his consciousness away.

  ***

  After the bath, Cain insisted to shave and dress himself, though Al’bah kept close. “What is wrong?” Al’bah asked as Cain stared into the mirror without blinking.

  “Are you kidding me?” Cain said, angry and bewildered at the same time. He turned back to his reflection in the mirror; much of his muscle mass had wasted away. Even Al’bah appeared thinner; her face and eyes had a gaunt, starved look. “I’m about the same size as Charlie,” he grumbled.

  Al’bah shook her head. “Cain, be thankful that your body is not permanently damaged. Come, you need to eat.”

  Al’bah took Cain’s hand and seated him at the Wellses’ table for breakfast. Though Al’bah seemed happy enough, Cain was slightly uncomfortable, as he noticed Serenna constantly looking to Amidres’ with an expectant look to her face. He had a good idea why she was so anxious, and decided to curb the uncomfortable air around the table.

  “Amidres’, I owe you my life,” Cain said, remembering what Serenna had asked him earlier, ready for the questions that she and even he would want answered. “My life, and so much more. You know that we are being hunted, but you have not turned us in. What can I do to repay your kindness?”

  Serenna glanced to Cain and Al’bah and back to her husband. The table had grown silent, and Amidres’ leaned back into his chair and looked into Cain’s eyes with a knowing look.