“Kha’zar,” Charles whispered. “Where are you?” Charles heard a snarl, and walked towards the sound. “Kha’zar is that you?” He peeked into a cell and saw a huddled mass in the corner. As the face lifted, he saw a haggard woman who stared at the tiny window without interest. Charles turned away from her with the same repugnance he had when he turned away from the damned souls at Styx. What was it that bothered him so? It wasn’t the ugliness Death conferred on the body. He walked to the next cell where a young man sat on his bed staring into nothing. It was the stark reality of the nothingness the suicides perceived that was overpowering him. Nothing was sadder than this.
The odor of rancid earth rose from the floor. Charles looked down and saw a light mist winding its way through the hall floating towards him. He knew instantly it was Dracula. “Show yourself, Villain,” he said sharply, and the mist congealed into the fang-toothed fiend of Stoker’s story. “At last we meet ephemeral one.”
The pasty-skinned man in regal clothing smiled at him as he straightened his aristocratic sash about his torso. “One hundred thirteen years later.”
“It’s bold you are to enter the Swallows when Death’s away,” Charles said.
“One could say the same to you. But certainly I can’t come when he is here consorting with Stoker. To have my creators meet me face to face would allow them to destroy me before I play my part in this plot.”
“Iago sent you to make sure I don't lose heart?”
“No. I came as your devoted ally against the Guardian who postures as a humble servant of God.”
“What have you against our dear, holy Raphael?”
“Pettigrew Simms and I know it was Raphael who inspired Albion Rector to record our deeds for the world to see—now Rector grows rich off our shame as we suffer eternal ignominy and media exploitation.”
“Oh, how you must hate those artist’s hands!” Charles said gleefully.
“They are the conscience of society. I hate that enough to set free the imp to chafe the comfort of those who needle human error. Come, I’ll show you where they have hidden poor Kha’zar.”
Charles followed him to down the hall to the right. “It’s just opposite that door,” he said pointing to a door from which emanated a glowing light.
“Why do you stop?” Charles said when Dracula halted. He motioned the phantom to follow.
“I cannot pass.”
Charles drew closer to the door and saw the pale red markings around the frame turn bright red and begin to drop a honey-like liquid onto the floor. This was Judas’ cell, the place where Raphael’s Resurrection painting remained upon the wall. No evil, not even a conjured vision of evil, could bear to pass by the holy picture. Of course, this was why neither Dracula nor Iago could accomplish the rescue alone.
Slowly, Charles inched along the wall, averting his eyes from the shimmering light, until he reached the door opposite and transported inside Kha'zar’s cell. There he found the imp, subdued as he rocked back and forth in his net, but uttering no blasphemies. He whimpered like a child consoling itself to sleep. Such a pitiful sight, the misshapen contorted body trapped in a rope womb. How could Death ignore the agony of this unfortunate? If this was truly a demon, humans had little to fear from it. Charles open the vial Iago had given him.
A blue vapor arose from it, and so bad a smell that Charles gagged involuntarily and flung the vial away from him towards Kha’zar. The urine splashed through the netting onto the feigning imp who screamed in joy as it splashed on his scaly flesh and dissolved the ropes that bound him and raised blisters on his skin. Freedom had a painful price, but Kha’zar paid it gladly.
Before Charles could recover his balance, Kha’zar dropped to the ground and attached himself to the hem of Charles' robe. Charles transported past the Judas cell where Dracula waited. Kha’zar removed his talons from Charles’s clothing and he and Dracula scurried down the hallway like cockroaches. Charles transported to the Fortress foyer, as desperate to get out as they were.
Fast and powerful as the Valkyries were, they couldn’t catch what they couldn’t grasp. Dracula transformed himself once more into fog. Now free, Kha'zar assumed the form of Stoker and simply walked out of the Swallows with Charles, unmolested by the Valkyries who had resumed their posts at the parapets. What they saw from their perches were two men walking near the marshes who eventually disappeared into an eerie mist.
Charles transported home and found an unexpected visitor waiting for him—self-doubt, a feeling he had never experienced before. Now it flew to his shoulders, digging its claws into his clothes, and becoming heavier and heavier as the night wore on. His betrayal of Death had taken less than seven minutes—the time it took for the Berlin Orchestra to finish playing the exposition of Ludwig’s 10th Symphony, the time it took for Maria Ballesteros give birth to a son she named Angelo Baptiste, and the time it took for Father Gonzaga to welcome Maria’s child into the Church.
****
Alby drove straight to Mercy hospital from the airport. Maddie was on the third floor hospital room far away from the maternity ward. The miscarriage had been painful, but not life-threatening, according to Dr. Hawthorne. “You can try again,” he said as he and her distraught husband rode the elevator together.
“What went wrong, really?” Alby said. Maddie would want a truthful explanation. “She carried twins just fine.”
“Life’s dicey. Some thirteen-year old girl screws once and she’s knocked up. A woman tries all her life to get pregnant and strikes out. Who knows why. There’s nothing obvious in your wife’s case. She’s healthy. The pregnancy wasn’t. End of story, but not of hormones. She'll weep for what could have been.”
Maddie was drifting in and out of sleep when Alby came to her side. He held her hand, giving it a gentle pat and telling her he loved her when she came round.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Did the Wife truly feel like she'd failed? “You didn’t do anything. The little guy just decided not to be born yet. That’s all.”
“You believe that? That we decide to be born?” Maddie said.
Alby nodded. “Anything’s possible.”
“Wish he would have decided before I spent four months with my head in the toilet and gained twenty pounds.”
“Well, maybe he had good intentions but ran into some weird body thing,” Alby said. The nurse brought in a vase of a dozen red roses, and handed Alby a card. “Consolation from Manstein,” Alby said and tucked the card in his pocket. "I think he'd be here himself, if he could. He's heard of The Red Parasol and says he won't be happy till it's displayed in his gallery."
"I don't understand bidding on a painting so few have ever seen," Maddie said.
"I told him the painting isn't for sale, but everybody desires most that which he cannot have without a struggle," Alby said with a slightly guilty grin. "By reputation alone, the picture's worth a great price. I may loan it to him."
Alby moved from the chair to the bed. The Wife needed a resting place for her head and his shoulder was always available. That's why men mostly have wider shoulders than women. In the larger scheme of things, what with the kids and all, and putting up with the likes of men like him, they needed more rest. Besides, with his head higher than hers, she wouldn't be able to see the tears floating down his face.
****
Father Montefeltro Gonzaga was named after Duke Federico da Montefeltro, who help build the Urbino Cathedral, where, dressed as a Roman soldier, Montefeltro’s towering statue protects the faithful. To the sword-bearing soldier, Maria Ballesteros lit a candle for Angelo, praying for the Duke to be the eyes of her infant who was born blind. Congenital, the doctors told the grieving mother. It couldn’t be helped.
Maria insisted the child was cursed. None of her other four children were afflicted, and the doctor’s inability to explain the cause of the blindness reinforced her belief that it was satanic intervention.
Father Gonzaga refused to dissuade Maria from her conclusion, stat
ing that to do so would necessitate rejecting the existence of the supernatural on which all faith was based. Privately, he acknowledged to Dr. Canera that Maria’s assessment wasn’t rational but it gave her hope. He’d seen more than one miracle in his sixty-five years, and prayed with Maria for one.
“Hope produces both good and bad things, Father,” Dr. Canera had said. “She may turn to charlatans who pretend to deal with spirits and dabble in the black arts and put the child in danger.”
“I doubt Maria would be desperate enough to consult with covens,” Gonzaga said.
Canera had shrugged she shoulders. “Many people try to bargain with God in their misery, and when they hold up their end and God doesn’t. Phht! Their faith evaporates and is replaced with depression,” Canera'd reminded the priest. “They forget God may not have signed on to the deal.”
“People don’t understand that God has more important matters to deal with,” Gonzaga agreed. But his fears always faded when he saw Maria at daily mass with Angelo in her arms, dabbing her fingers in the holy water and caressing his eyes as she entered and left the church. Six years later, it was time for Angelo to start school. Though she no longer brought him to daily mass, Maria never wavered. Every morning as she left the church, she filled a small vial with holy water and put it in Angelo’s lunch sack next to his fruit cup.
The Search Begins
For seven years, Death searched the earth—its mountains, deserts, rain forests and plains, its oceans, islands, valleys and tundras—looking for a sign of Raphael Redcloak. He scanned the cities, those going to sleep and those arising, and listened to people crying. Some with pain and some with joy, some in peace and some in terror. In the pocket of his robe, he still carried the first note from Beethoven asking to see the Guardian who did his job so well that the entire world had heard his music played true and clear. Now there was another, delivered by Stoker, as Death sulked in the Swallows with frustration.
Beethoven was not the only one who sought him out to learn of the whereabouts of the Spirit World’s most renowned Guardian, but the inquirers he scared away with a scowl. Except Beethoven who never feared his face. At the moment of his death, the musician had glared back at him. This note was a calling card. On the back was scrawled: 10 o'clock tomorrow. How these humans clung to their clocks.
And as the clock struck the hour, bold as his music, Beethoven appeared in the Fortress foyer and called out a question for the Grim Reaper, “Where is the Guardian who made my life complete?"
Death sized him up, and grew two inches taller than his blustery visitor who swaggered into the Great Hall with royal entitlement. “I don’t know where he is, Sir.”
But the man brushed by him, the wind catching his long black cape, lifting it just enough to reveal the red-orange lining he had recently sewn into it.
“You may not know where he is, but you know he lives again.” Beethoven said with a knowing smile as Death swirled the cape around him to hide the shimmering lining. “Find him. He cannot live forever.”
“If you are truly grateful to him, protect him from his enemies, and not demand that I reveal his whereabouts.” Death said. The truth was as good a way as any to hide his failure.
“He is in danger?”
“Yes, if the demon learns his identity. He must remain anonymous.”
Beethoven drew closer to Death’s side. “Fate betrayed you.”
“I don’t know if it was he who freed Kha’zar. All I know is that Charles avoids my company and dallies with Time in his garden. I suppose it’s possible a reconciliation is in the making, but the bitterness between them would seem to defy thawing no matter how strong the fires of their passion burn.”
Beethoven laughed harshly. “Reconciliation? Never. The man is a cur and Time a relentless bitch. What will you do now?”
“Mull and whip myself for my own ineptitude. It’s a difficult situation,” Death said. “I depend heavily upon the information Fate gives me about those whose time has come. There are so many people to keep track of these days. Each person has his own death in the same way he has his own birth. Humans are of the same species, but they're all unique.”
“I thought the angels told you whom to deliver.”
The angels tell me the names of the souls God has called, but not everyone who dies is ready for judgment. And, when bodies die before His call, spirits sojourn here. But the souls? Only God can separate the soul from the spirit.”
Beethoven paused to consider his words, then said, “I'm beginning to understand more about the nature of God. Your words comfort me."
“I was not always the fearful Death you see before you.” Death became his youthful self. “After my conversion, I became an evangelist for Christ. I walked with angels and with men and with every beast God created. I witnessed the evolution of the earth and all its inhabitants. And I witnessed the evolution of dread, and fear, and terror as faith, love and trust withered away.”
“Why was it allowed?” Beethoven said.
“Freedom was God's most precious gift. Whatever evolved was consequence of that. I could have tried to thwart God’s design, as Satan tries to do. But I learned that the gift was for me too, and I prize it as mankind does. Mine is a fearsome job. Yet, the more difficult the task, the more sense of purpose and pleasure it provides. Another gift from God: the triumph of achievement.”
Beethoven placed his hand on Death’s shoulder, then pulled it back in apprehension. His cloak was cold and stiff though the room was warm.
"Without or without Fate, I will find our friend," Death said, resolve replacing reluctance and self-recrimination. "There is one that knows of every birth of life and can call the name of every sparrow."
He enveloped himself in a blue miasma, and traveled to the highest mountain in the cosmos—Mount Olympus. And, outside the gates of the city, he hailed the centuries-old centurion keeping watch. The soldier held his spear against the golden rods of the gate. "Turn back, Death, you have no business here," he warned.
"My business is with Demeter. I seek her knowledge about one born on Earth. Nothing more. Tell Mother Nature her son is here."
The centurion's orders were to bar the way of all those who sought to align themselves with the immortal demigods. Their children, especially those angels mired in the affairs of men, had been rebuked and exiled as traitors at the beginning times, and he could imagine no affectionate bonds between the beautiful bountiful Demeter and this pleading boy in black. "I'll send for her, but if she refuses...."
"I understand," Death said, "but she will not refuse. Tell her I am here about the Guardian."
Death seated himself on Sisyphus' rock, that symbol of absurd activity that Camus declared the source of his happiness, and remembered his own captivity. Once enchained by the man who desired to rid the world of him, Death understood why Kha'zar yearned to be free. Part of him even understood why Fate assisted him in his quest for freedom. What remained a mystery is why Fate betrayed him.
Sisyphus must be punished, the gods had decreed. "Mortals cannot be seen as being smarter, wiser or craftier than we." In their pronouncement lay the key to all human ills, for crafty has a double meaning: sly and talented. Let a man struggle uselessly and he will be happy and not challenge the gods. But let him strive and succeed—flourish, achieve, come to understand and reveal the essence of the Almighty, and he makes midgets of the great ones whose existence is nothing more than self-indulgence.
Demeter approached, wearing a cape of roses without thorns and 'round her golden hair shone a halo of fire that did not burn. Her robes were the colors of the seasons—green, red, orange and silver—and she carried a flowering staff of light lavender braided with silver ribbons. Her walk was regal, her face as lovely as the day they parted. "Mother," Death said as she neared the gate.
"How fares your brother, Suffering?" she said.
"Busy always. He and his children do the bidding of the gods."
"And asks no reward for their unpleasant tasks, I mig
ht add. Come the End Days, they'll join us here. But you? I wonder what will happen to you when time ends." There was no concern in her voice.
He resisted the temptation to profess his faith and said instead, "Perhaps Titian will paint a picture of me carrying the rock." He patted the stone affectionately.
"You change the subject too artfully. You've come about Raphael Redcloak. Speak."
"He is in the world again."
"Ah, yes. And who’s permission was needed for that? Well, never mind. His Bianca piques the interest of Zeus. What manner of womanly wonder is she that she inspires such selfless and dangerous devotion in a Guardian, he wonders, to the consternation of dear Hera who is ever faithful in her own way." Death saw a smile creep to her mouth, a jealous smile that told him he had come to the right place if he was going to find Raphael. The gods envied humanity's ability to inspire without subterfuge. "To give up an honor is one thing, but the safety of one's own death?"
Raphael Redcloak Page 15