"Well," he said, "are you ready?"
"Yes." Eva locked up her shop and placed the keys in her little black purse.
"Good." The Fallen Angel's eyes glowed. "Take my hand and hold onto my body."
He knew where to go. She placed her hand in his—he felt it tremble as their skin made contact—and she wrapped her other arm around his neck. He leapt into the air, little Kiazmo following closely behind. Within seconds, they stood before a wide, red-brick home. Several cars were parked in the driveway and along the street. One porch light dimly illuminated the rectangular porch, the other bulb burnt out. The front door was closed, all curtains drawn.
"They're here," said Eva, adjusting her black knit shawl. "I will introduce you."
Malynko slipped his wings inside of his robes and nodded. Eva rang the doorbell. He looked up to the roof and concentrated on the space above a couple dozen shingles where he felt a sudden burst of energy. Coming into view was a glowing, translucent shape of an angel of darkness, a shape shifter with a shaved head. He wore dark pants and a long vest with tails. Malynko smiled.
Wait until I send word, he telepathically said. I will inform you of what shape to take when I decide.
As you wish.
The door opened, spilling out ambient New Age music, and Malynko lowered his gaze, letting it settle on a thirty-something-year-old man. The human donned a flowing, sleeveless shirt that revealed black Celtic tattoos on his arms. An amethyst stone was nestled in a silver catch on the end of a silver chain around his neck. His sideburns were sharp, ending in points on both sides of his thin mouth. He smelled of incense and something sharper—probably marijuana. That was Earth's weed of choice to smoke. Malynko knew there were worse things on different worlds, toxic plants that burned the hands upon touch or incinerated the lungs if smoked. But he wasn't here to give health lessons. He was here to establish a new religion.
"Cliff, darling," Eva said.
Cliff took her hands in his and kissed the knuckles of her thumbs. "Eva. So glad you could make it." His voice was deep, mellow. "We've been waiting for you."
His eyes trailed up the angel's green garb, then met his gaze. Malynko could easily read the skepticism running through the man's mind. To fix that problem, he stared deeply and said telepathically:
Your nightmares of tigers will not end if you do not believe in me. They will continue to eat you, slowly, limb by limb. I know you haven't told anyone of them. Do you think they will merely go away? I sent them. I have the power to continue sending them.
Cliff already had a light complexion, but his skin paled to the point of looking sickly. Malynko knew that Cliff had these nightmares because he had watched nature show after nature show when he was a young child. Some of the episodes were more vicious than others and had a lasting, traumatic effect. The Elitist, however, took it as a perfect opportunity to manipulate the obviously terror-stricken man.
Shh, now. I'm not here to harm you. I'm here to help. The dreams were merely to get your attention. And they will continue until I have your attention. Fully.
Cliff started shaking.
"Are you all right?" Eva asked him.
"This," Cliff said, backing up against the narrow hallway's white wall, "this—this is him, isn't it?" Malynko only stood there, his hands clasped at his waist. "Hell, Eva, you weren't joking."
"Cliff," Eva whispered, "you think I would jest about such matters?"
A large lump raised and lowered in Cliff's throat as he attempted to swallow. Shaking his head, he ran to his right, shouting:
"Elle!"
Eva shot Malynko a look of confusion, but before she could ask him a question, he brushed past her and into the living room. The furniture, an African-print couch set and several onyx tables and shelves, had been pushed out of the way and against the walls. The rest of the coven sat at points of a pentagram drawn of salt on the wooden floor. Several different colored candles were lit within the star: red for power, white for purity, and gold tapers for money spells. Two of the people at the pentagram stood up—a young woman dressed like a flower-child hippie and an older man who was nude from the saggy waist up, his legs covered in comfy blue pants; a long graying beard had grown to the length of his collarbone. The other two members—both women—still sat. One, a middle-aged, overweight lady in flowing brown skirts, the other, Elle, the high priestess in glamorous, black lace. She wore her hair up, black curls spilling down beside her ears, a pentagram necklace resting in her shallow cleavage. Her eyes were slanted. Her pale skin did not reveal her age. She could have been twenty or forty.
"Elle—I mean, Priestess," Cliff said, wringing his hands. "It's Malynko. The one Eva was telling us about—see? She wasn't crazy—"
"Stop speaking," said Elle.
She glared up at the Elitist, her eyes lined in sparkly makeup. The blinking orbs looked like brown-topped pearls in beds of black velvet. She had a hand on each knee. The slow music undulated invisibly around them through tiny speakers nailed to the corners of the ceiling. Eva stepped into the room, holding Kiazmo's hand. The high priestess averted her attention to the woman.
"Eva, look what you've done to Cliff's sanity," she said, a catlike hiss to her voice. "First you have the gall to lie to us and now this? I can't believe you actually had the nerve to find someone stupid enough to desecrate—"
"My lady," Malynko said, and her eyes blazed. He smiled at her, wickedly. "If you don't mind me saying, but you and your people have been desecrating me for centuries. I know you all much better than you know me."
He glanced at the two coven members who had stood upon his entry—the old man and young woman. Extending a hand to touch the girl's face, he contemplated how much fun scaring them witless was going to be. He turned to the old man and slightly cocked his head.
"Kip and granddaughter Lara," he said. "Please, sit."
They did, their quick movements a display of their readiness to be obedient.
Elle laughed. "So, Eva told you their names."
"I told him nothing," said Eva. She leaned against the wall, Kiazmo putting her fingers in his mouth to suck on them. "He is like a god, Priestess. You must listen to him."
"Practically took the words out of my mouth, Eva," said Malynko. He turned to Cliff. "You may take your place at the pentagram as well."
Cliff sat down, nodding to Kip and Lara. Malynko then turned to the overweight woman next to Elle. Across the pentagram, he winked at her and raised his arms, letting the loose sleeves fall back to reveal his smooth, pallid, muscular forearms. He used his right pointer finger to trace an invisible line down the inside of his wrist and asked her:
"Were you fifteen or sixteen, Meg, when you tried to end your life?"
She blinked, slowly at first, then more rapidly as tears flooded in. She clutched the long sleeves of her shirt and pulled them down, though they already more than covered her wrists. Malynko's red ring swirled with power. He would not relent. He knew she had not told anyone in Edenton of her past sins, had tried to bury them in her mind, but like an archaeologist, he had entered the hidden tombs of her memories and unearthed every secret relic, especially the one she wanted to leave in San Francisco: her female lover—a second cousin, age ten.
"Shall I tell them," he whispered, taunting, "of Candice?"
Meg ran a shaky hand through her short brown hair. She shook her head, not looking at Elle when the priestess tried to look at her. Elle frowned, her brow creased.
"It will take more than cheap, parlor psychic games to convince me, spirit."
"Oh, good. Because I intend on making quite a spectacle."
He had many plans to work with here, but there was one path he could take that would ensure a quick victory. He just wasn't sure how much he wanted to make her weep.
"What's taking you so long?" said Elle. "Are you one of those pathetic, fake psychics who needs peace and quiet?"
"No, but if you insist on silence, let it be."
Raising a finger, he focused his energy
on the stereo system, and the speakers were suddenly stripped of sound. Elle jumped and turned around to see who had turned it off. No one was near the device. Continuing to probe, the Elitist found the perfect bait. He telepathically called to the shape shifter on the roof.
"Your mother wishes a word," he said.
Elle's eyes widened. Through the wall behind Malynko came a figure, barely visible at first, but then brighter. It was a woman. Asian. She was slender, beautiful, her body clothed in a red Kimono. Elle's mouth dropped open as what she believed to be her dead mother walked through Malynko, weightless, and hovered above the lit candles before her, a blue specter. The high priestess stood as her coven stared on in astonishment. Her lip quivered.
"Mama?" she breathed.
Yes, said the shape shifter. He had already changed his voice to match her deceased parent's. My darling Elle.
With tears running down her cheeks, taking streaks of black makeup with them, she said in a broken voice, "Mama, you are safe?"
Yes, safe. The shape shifter lifted a dainty hand and brought it to Elle's cheeks. And I have come to tell you of Malynko. He will save this world. You must follow him.
Elle nodded. It looked as if she would never stop. Malynko knew the shifter's energy would not last for much longer. So he interceded.
"Enough," he said, and the transformed angel turned to him. "You must return home now. You have done your job."
The shape shifter bowed, disappearing from human sight.
Excellent job, Malynko said telepathically once the shape shifter was invisible.
My pleasure. And he was gone.
Elle. How weak she looked now. Her lacy dress hung off her hunched shoulders, her face stained with black. She, among other witches of the sort, believed anything set in front of her. It was pathetic the way these humans clung so tightly to their false magic as if it were going to save them from the world, from loss, from their true selves. Did they wish to run from everyday living? Did they wish to flee the pain the Almighty bestowed upon their hearts at birth by lighting their candles and chanting their spells? The fools. The only magic left in the universe was standing before them. And he had no intention of letting them run from anything.
"Your mother understands, Elle," he said, stepping into the pentagram. The grains of salt forcefully flew from him, and the sharp clouds hit the walls with a clatter that sounded like rain. "Now, why can't you?"
He kicked over several of the candles, stepping on the burning wicks to stifle their fires. As he grew closer to Elle, he let the seductive ring slip from his voice, letting its true resonance come forth in a threatening display of power.
"I am what you have been looking for all of your lives."
He lifted two fingers, and a wide, red candle from the center of the star rose up to his hand. As he grabbed it, the flame intensified. He ran his fingers along Elle's jaw, sending her mental images of her body immersed in the pleasure of his, and her eyes rolled back. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor. Spinning around and lifting his arms, he sent a great wind swirling through the room, and the candle flame shot to the ceiling. Cliff clutched his necklace. Grandfather and granddaughter held to each other.
"I will teach you how to call the spirits of nature to do your bidding." Malynko knew the demons would be more than happy to play. "I will teach you tonight the symbols of this great and sacred art, The Art of Malynko."
"We are ready to be your followers, my lord," said Meg, weeping. "We will take your blessed name proudly upon our shoulders! The Followers of Malynko!"
"Good," said the Elitist, his elegant face now ominous in the light of the fire. "Eva, help them to record this information, for I fear their fingers are too startled to write."
She nodded, walking into the back room, and in one quick movement, the top of his robes fell down around his waist. His bare, sculpted chest and smooth back were covered in wicked black markings he'd had Kiazmo paint. Some looked like Celtic figures, some derivations of Egyptian hieroglyphics, others much more strange and alien. It was merely Angelic, the characters representing some basic terms: Death, Destruction, Deviance. But the humans didn't know that. They would believe these words to be peaceful commands to give the spirits, not demonic influences for the dark ones.
"Nature," said Malynko, lying with ease, "has its own speech. In your hearts you will know what these words mean. Concentrate on them. Write them when you feel weak. Run your fingers along the page and be strengthened. Engrave them into your doorways for safety."
"Oh, my—I—I can't believe it," Elle said.
Malynko turned to her.
"Elle," he whispered, his face deathly serious. "Don't tell me you're having second thoughts after all I showed you?"
"No, never," she said, her tough demeanor now replaced with sniveling, frightened honesty. "I—I am astounded by—by your wings! Black like death, though you bring us life! Can you explain it?"
Yes, he thought. I most certainly could.
"It is not my place to judge the appearance Fate has given me," he said. "Nor is it yours."
It seemed to be a good enough explanation for her.
But it wasn't good enough for him.
It was never good enough for him.
To carry a mark worse than Cain's for eternity, to live forever with a curse bestowed by a jealous Creator was more than frustrating. It was enraging. If God knew so much, how could He allow Lucifer's existence, knowing the angel would rebel against Him? How could He, in His greatness, allow for such a thing to happen? The Almighty didn't know these things. He was a liar. He was flawed—flawed but still in power. Why? It made Malynko wonder. And as he wondered, he thought of Laphelle. Looking into the candle burning so brightly, listening to the coven weep from uncontainable emotion as they bowed around him, he wondered, as wrath wrenched his wretched heart, where on Earth the First Rank was.
***
Laphelle
Laphelle blew out the candle. All day he'd sat at the kitchen table, his thoughts flitting back and forth from the present mystery of the violin to his utterly humiliating past on Soth. His heart soared in a spiritual sky with the thought of his new find, but it was shot from its flight every time the grandfather clock rang, triggering the memory of that wretched ceremony.
But now it was night, and Malynko was gone.
The blond rogue headed not to the Wiccans', but to Jack's house. He held the coat in his ivory hand, gripping it by the collar. Jack had given that coat to him out of concern. Out of kindness. Why? Surely there was some other reason. Some catch involved. Perhaps he had given it out of fear. Maybe he had been trying to abate the First Rank's trembling fit because he thought it was an episode of anger. Laphelle shook his head, hating those reasons. They weren't the right reasons, because Jack wasn't afraid of him.
After ensuring there were no pedestrians about on the street to make a fuss at the sight of his flying, he let his feet find the ground, and he cloaked his wings. Just up the street was that humble, strangely comfortable abode.
True, Jack was human, and sure, Laphelle hadn't killed him yet, but that was because Jack was (the angel thought long and hard for this excuse) useful. It wasn't because Laphelle wanted to be his friend—that was ridiculous. Laphelle didn't have friends. No, he wanted to use Jack. Use Jack to get Malynko's annoying face out of his head and to learn about the violin. There was nothing of any sort of pathetic camaraderie involved. Just the scheme.
Folding the long coat neatly so that Jack would be pleased—or rather—just so he would let him use other things in the future, Laphelle walked up to the porch and found a note on lined yellow paper scotch-taped to the door.
Lafel (however you spell it), I am so sorry, but I forgot that an old friend of mine was coming to town tonight! I will be gone most of the night. Sorry!! Oh, by the way, you forgot your sword. I tried moving it, but the damn thing burned my hand… Come back tomorrow and get it off my couch.
Jack
Laphelle threw the coat t
o the ground. He ripped the note off the door and tore it to pieces.
"Other plans?" He threw the shreds to the ground. His night was ruined. "You don't treat the immortals with such disrespect! Well." His voice deepened. "Let's see how much you enjoy fixing this."
He grabbed the old, round door handle and turned it until the lock broke. Hermes started barking fiercely as the angel intruded the home. Jack had left a few lights on in the house, and Laphelle turned them all out. Then he located the violin case, which was in its usual spot, and grabbed it. Hermes followed his heels the entire time, calm after smelling the angel's feet. As the blond rogue stood in the doorway with his stolen prize, he looked down at the long canine. It wagged its tail and looked up at him, seeming to smile.
"You want out, Hermes?" he asked, grinning like a wicked little boy.
As if the animal comprehended his words, it took off in thrilled leaps of freedom down the road.
"Let's see how you like that, Jack."
Stepping over the coat, he tossed his head back, throwing his unruly hair out of his eyes. Then, he hesitated.
His sword.
He looked back to the house, furrowing his brow. Then he sighed and walked back inside. Once within the cozy walls, he stopped his stride, standing before the weapon, contemplating. No. He wouldn't take it now. He would get it when he returned the violin. That way he could see if the wretched human was back yet. He left the house in a determined flash and slammed the door, the plants hanging from the porch roof swaying from the violent bang. Then he jumped into the air, pushed by invisible wings, and driven by fierce desire to see what new secrets the violin would unfold tonight.
***
Gidyon
Gidyon sneaked out of the house as soon as Max and Christine fell asleep. Noam had left earlier—there was a rumor floating around that a dead body had been found drained of blood, and he feared that it might have been Kiazmo's doing. Nothing was known about the little angel of darkness, and instinct was to expect the worst. But now, Gidyon had other things on his mind. He reached the end of Max's circle drive and made the choice to turn left, when he ran into Adam Jameson. The man leaned on his car that had been hid behind a row of trees. His arms were crossed. Gidyon grinned innocently and said:
Wings of the Divided: The Divided Book 1 Page 20