Dark Temptation

by D. S. Molinari

  “There's no time” said the ghost.

  His black wings opened to surround them and the world beneath their feet shook. Kaliel gripped Ali tightly as they were sucked into a whirlwind of darkness to be thrown, moments later, in an ivory nothingness.

  “Oh, how horrible...”

  Kalo clicked his fingers and the apparent infinity of his personal universe took the form of the Garden of Eden again. He himself got rid of his shroud appearance and presented himself with his true angelic appearance. He turned around as if searching for something and then snapped his fingers again. The place changed again. Now they were inside a sumptuous Arab-style palace. Kalo settled into what must have been the most comfortable cushions in history. A platter of dates appeared at his right hand and he began to eat while he watched Kaliel and Alanis with a funny look.

  “Sit down” he encouraged them by shaking the other hand.

  Kaliel snorted and flopped down on the pillows with his arms crossed. Ali sat next to him.

  “Mortal, huh?” Kalo commented.

  Kaliel was about to jump on him but Ali stopped him.

  “Thank you” she said.

  Kalo smiled, shrugging. He took another date and offered it to her. Ali accepted it, as an offering of peace.

  “I wasn’t making fun”, Kalo said. “You have my full support. You can stay here as long as you need”.

  His smile widened as much as his cheeks allowed.

  “Actually, I need to get out of here...”

  Ali stood up. Kalo's smile faded. He looked a little disappointed. She looked for the exit in all directions.

  “I need to go back to the cathedral and take my father's things” she said. Her gaze flew to Kaliel when she realized it. Then she turned to Kalo. “Can you see the memories by touching the objects too? Of course you can! Do you?”

  “Yes...”

  Kalo blinked, confused.

  “It’s impossible, I’ve already tried” Kaliel sighed.

  “Did you try to see my father's memories through the chest?” Ali insisted.

  “Yes” he said. “It’s covered by onyx mirrors inside. It’s impossible to see...”

  Ali snorted.

  “No matter. I have to recover my father's things. Kalo, let me out. I'll be right back” she promised.

  “Don’t do it!”

  Kaliel went to her and took her by the shoulders. He couldn’t protect her as before.

  “I can take care of myself. It’ll only take a few moments...”

  “I’ll go with you”.

  “Better not” Kalo interjected. “Your recent descent will make your old friends want to give their congratulations to you” Kalo pointed ironically, with a meaningful look.

  Kaliel didn’t find it funny and looked at him angrily.

  “Shut up”.

  “It's true” said Ali. “I don’t have time for this”.

  “If you don’t come back in fifteen minutes I'll go out for you” agreed Kaliel.

  Ali nodded.

  “You have the best interdimensional communicator with you” she said with a nod towards Kalo. “Don’t hesitate to use it”.

  Kalo smiled funny. With a wave of his hand he brought the dark door that led from his dwelling to the subterranean passages of Salisbury. Ali kissed Kaliel and disappeared inside it before he could stop her.

  Kaliel sighed. He stared at the ground trying to avoid Kalo's annoying presence full of joy. But the fallen angel came closer.

  “We have something to talk about...”

  “What?” Kaliel said dryly.

  “You don’t remember... Well, of course you don’t remember! The fact is that before you fell... Even before I fell, we were friends and...”

  Kaliel rolled his eyes.

  “Sure, thousands of years ago we were all good friends” he scoffed. “Even Lucif...”

  “Shhhh! Don’t say it! I don’t mean that” Kalo interrupted in his playful voice. “Kaliel, you and I were such friends that when you were punished you came to me before receiving the sentence...”

  Kaliel fixed his gaze now on Kalo.

  “You made me promise that if this day came, if you failed and you lost redemption, at least you wanted to know why...”

  Kaliel's lips moved but he didn’t speak.

  “Yes” continued Kalo. “You gave me all your memories so you could recover them if you wanted to”.

  For a moment, Kaliel froze.

  “Do you want them now?” Kalo asked intertwining his hands with an innocent expression.

  Kaliel turned his eyes to him and merely nodded without words.

  Kalo clicked his fingers and both appeared in the source added in the memory of the Oracle of Delphi where he had submerged Ali the first time.

  “Inside” Kalo indicated with a tilt of his hand.

  Kaliel obeyed. He entered the water and lay down to float on it. This time, Kalo stepped in next to him and pushed his shoulders to the bottom. But the bottom didn’t come. His body completely submerged and then Kalo next to him. Then everything began to spin at a dizzying pace. The images slid like lightning around him and some pierced his mind. Incessant lights dazzled him and water entered his throat. Then he appeared as floating in a room...

  He heard the cry of a baby. He saw lights, a woman who shouted and then a man who fled while she bled. The scene fled like lightning. This was followed by other confusing scenes, full of a light that dazzled him and didn’t let him see.

  “It's your old glory” Kalo's voice whispered inside his mind.

  Now he was in the courtyard. It was the garden of Alanis's house, a cold and rainy afternoon. The girl, about five years old, appeared running across the street and he followed her. He thought he saw her fall until he realized that she had thrown herself on the floor beside a drain. The girl introduced her hands to take out a puppy that shivered almost frozen and soaked in rain and then took off her coat to wrap it. He protected her with his wings. Then the light became so intense that it devoured everything and returned it to another memory.

  The memories were happening at a speed incompatible with real time. He seemed to catch some as a dream but was regaining consciousness of everything.

  He was sitting in the window when she entered her room. Alanis was twelve years old.

  “I don’t understand anything! We’ll never use equations in our life! Why do we have to learn this?” complained Alanis throwing a book on the bed. She threw herself too. Then her eyes turned to Kaliel, went through him. “I can see you. Stop pretending you're not there”.

  Kaliel was sucked into another scene. He was resting on the branch of a tree while she was reading on the ground. Suddenly, she left the book and jumped up to reach his hand. Electricity ran through him from where their skins came in contact.

  “I thought my hand would pass through you like a ghost” she said, blushing.

  Then, he was in her room again. Alanis was thirteen years old and crying inconsolably on her bed. Kaliel felt that sadness as if it were his. He just approached her and Alanis jumped into his arms. He saw nights after that in which he saw her sleeping peacefully and didn’t separate from her side. Then everything started to get strange.

  He was outside again. It was spring. Alanis was fourteen years old. She approached him with a bright smile and cheerful expression. She pulled a wreath of woven flowers from behind her back and placed it on her head.

  “How do I look?” She asked.

  Lovely. Beautiful. He thought about it but he didn’t tell her. He just smiled, hiding that disturbance that was beginning to creep into the depths of his conscience...

  Another scene. She looked at him intensely.

  “I love you”.

  His heart jumped and reality slid again.

  “I found another like you. It's my new friend, look. It's called... What's your name? Oh yeah! Larsen!” Ali said.

  Everything took shape and saw Ali appear along with Baaltazhar. The first time he saw that insane smile.
>
  “He can’t be your friend!” He heard himself say.

  As in a dream, he was now in India. He entered the Taj Mahal and plucked a sapphire from one of the reliefs. He looked at the blue and was transported again in front of her. He was staring at her deep blue iris. Her sweet smile. Her black hair. She had changed completely. She was tall and life flourished in her skin.

  “And I thought that Shah Jahan wouldn’t be upset if I did this” he said approaching. “After all he understood what love is...”

  “Do what?”

  “This…”

  He took out a necklace with the embedded sapphire and slid it down her neck.

  “It's a sapphire” he said taking her by the shoulders. Then he turned her toward the mirror. “I took it from the Taj. It reminded me of your eyes...”

  Alanis sighed delightedly. When she turned to him again, there were tears in her eyes.

  “I love you so much, Kaliel” she said. “I'm dying of fear that someday you'll go away...”

  “I won’t go anywhere” he hugged her. “ I'm yours for life...”

  “I never want to die” she whimpered.

  That was the moment when he remembered what Charlotte had done. He remembered trying to get away.

  “You better forget about me” he said one day in the rain.

  She cried.

  “You can’t feel this. I'm not like you. I am an angel and it’s forbidden”.

  “But you also feel it...”

  Saying it was like moving a mountain with his thoughts.

  “No”.

  Alanis was devastated. He cried day and night in her room. He saw her through the windowpane but he struggled not to get close. Even so, he heard what she said...

  “Never again will I want something else in life that isn’t you. Talk to me!”

  And also, what Baaltazhar whispered to her within dreams.

  “End your life. Nobody will regret it. Without him nothing is worth it”.

  That's why they fought. It wasn’t once but several times. Because he was skirting her to perdition.

  “Do you want to make her fall first?” The demon said among other aberrant rudeness. “You're saving my job. I'd better sit and watch how you do it for me”.

  That mocking smile faded into darkness.

  Now he was among the trees behind her house. It was snowing. She saw him and he hid behind a log.

  “Kaliel!”

  Alanis ran to him. Then he heard the scream followed by a blow and rushed towards her. Alanis was on the floor. She looked at the cut in her bloody hand but didn’t care and ran to him. He couldn’t help it anymore. She threw herself into his arms, shattering his will. If her mortal life ended he wouldn’t find more sense in the world either.

  “Fuck the rules...” he said and hugged her.

  The scene blurred again.

  “Don’t do it!” She pleaded.

  It was night and they were sitting under the starry sky.

  “I’ll renounce my immortality. I'll ask Him”. Kaliel gripped his hand. “And when you die I’ll die too, and nothing else will ever happen other than us”.

  “What if I could get immortality?”

  “No” he cut her harshly.

  It was daylight. Alanis didn’t want to let go of his hand.

  “It's decided” he said.

  “Don’t do it! If you do, I won’t ever talk to you again!”

  He became stunned.

  “But if you said...”

  “Yes!” Ali broke down crying. “I love you! That's why. I don’t want to steal your eternity”.

  Kaliel hugged her tightly. He lifted her face by the chin.

  “I love you” he murmured.

  “I love you…”

  She kissed him. He had kissed her too until he felt the connection breaking inside him. Heaven and earth trembled. Four blinding lights fell and surrounded them. They took Ali from her side between screams. He couldn’t move. Gabriel led him to his trial.

  He had to decide. For her. It was the only way to save her. Baaltazhar would also be separated from her so as not to lose the balance because of the Covenant. She wouldn’t remember anything. And he himself requested that punishment, which was granted to him afterwards, in reality, as a gift. The relief of a suffering that would have been endless.

  Kaliel emerged from the water shaking. Awesome. The truth kept burning him inside but he still wanted it. It hurts but you still don’t want to escape, Ali had said. He hurried out of the water, searching frantically with his eyes. He needed her now. Tell her everything or that she saw it with her own eyes.

  “She hasn’t returned” Kalo informed him with a serious expression. Something wasn’t right. “You better go after her...”

  30

  Darkness

  Alanis crossed the gelatinous darkness into the corridors of the underground city under The Poultry Cross. The darkness was total but she had the fire. She waved her hands until they burned and everything lit up. Some eyes, snooping but apparently harmless, rushed to take refuge in the shadows. She remembered Larsen's words and, somehow, she knew they were true: the Children of the Night will kneel before you. Well, as long as they didn’t bother her, she didn’t need their inclinations. Not for now.

  She went walking to the tunnels of the cathedral. Although she saw them, none of those creatures dared to approach her. The fire ceased to be necessary once she emerged inside the cathedral. The silence was absolute. No one was waiting for her so she probably wouldn’t have run into Max or Zhaira either. Even though she knew it didn’t make sense, she slipped as quietly as possible to a stop at Sabrina's door. She wanted to say goodbye but she regretted it and ran to the tower before she noticed her presence. Any distraction could ruin everything and she wanted to return as soon as possible with Kaliel.

  Kaliel's room was just as she had seen it when she left except for the things that were now on the bed. Of everything that she had written down on the list for Sabrina, very little could she use now. Her father's letter was under the mattress of her bed. Ali folded it and put it in her pants pocket. Then she went to the trunk and began to remove everything quickly until she found the chest where her father kept the badge of Gladius Dei. It may be enchanted by a powerful magic, dark even, but it belonged to him. Ali lifted the chest to the moonlight that filtered through the window, where Kaliel used to sit. The polished wood gleamed in the silvery light.

  She opened it and took the badge between her fingers. It was curious how a wooden box had withstood such a fire. What if it wasn’t really the physical fire that was prepared to resist but the infernal fire? No, she didn’t dare to try. However, she couldn’t help wondering why her father would keep the key of a chest that only had a badge... Or why such a chest of that size and weight, was only destined to protect a badge... Now she knew that her father had always had a good reason for everything he did. Ali began to turn it and explore its surface with her fingers, looking for any strange relief. And she found it. From inside, the reliefs of the corners were turned unlocking the fluffy piece of blue velvet on which the badge rested. Beneath it was a relief in which the badge fit perfectly. Ali placed it there and, obeying the intuition, she turned it until she felt that the lid gave way to the hidden bottom...

  There it was the huge, heavy key she had once seen in her childhood. It was green and solid, as if forged in iron. It occupied all her hand and had a phrase inscribed around:

  Don’t fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when through the rivers, they won’t sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you won’t be scorched and the flame won’t burn you.

  She remembered that phrase. Isaiah chapter forty-three. Her father repeated it to her whenever they read the Bible. He told her that the names were very important and said a lot about who we were. Some believed that we already carried our destinies in the name and many people changed their names when they felt that th
ey had ceased to be what they once were. Now everything made sense. But it wasn’t just to make a secret reference to his personal story that her father had made sure she remembered that passage. There was another place, another memory that involved it.

  Ali ran downstairs, carrying the chest in one hand and the key in the other. She reached the main nave of the cathedral and hurried to the baptismal font in the form of a flower on whose leaves the same words were engraved. She was sure there was a relationship. Ali went around the fountain, explored every inch. She sank her hands in the water, feeling the inner surface. At last, her eyes found that unknown hollow at the foot of the fountain. The key fit perfectly in it. She had to exert a little strength but at last she managed to turn it and heard the slight sound of something unlocking. Her heart hammered so hard inside her chest as if it were going to explode. The blood seemed to run all the way to her head and put pressure on her ears. She held her breath as she ran that socket that was now loose at the foot of the fountain. Her hand entered and felt the rigid, irregular surface. Leather. Yes…

  She took the book with both hands and dropped to her knees as she read the handwritten title on the first page: Maleficat. The letter was that of her father. Tears of emotion began to fall down her cheeks. She was closer. Much closer. The temptation to take a look at its content and the work of her father, which was a part of him and his hand, overcame her. She quickly passed the pages describing the history and organization of the order and then several appendices about the demons and other creatures. It was like a bestiary of the Children of the Night.

  ... Real vampires: created directly by a demon through his own blood...

  ... Converted vampires: created by a real vampire, or Vampire Prince. Their abilities are inferior due to their indirect filiation with the demonic entities... Force and superhuman reflexes. Vision in the dark. Immortality…

  Demons: rebellious angels. Expelled from the Heavens...

  Ali turned the page and found a title that caught her attention: Grigori. There was the same story about the Watchers, those angels who descended and procreated with human women, as Kaliel had told her. However, that wasn’t what surprised her, nor the news that things like that were still happening. The text actually pointed to another class of creatures that Gladius Dei had indexed as susceptible to identification and extermination: Nefilims.