by Lucy Swing
The killing was a provocation meant to produce another signal from her. If and when this dark-haired girl saw what was meant for her eyes to see, then I would know for certain what powers she possessed. The risk was great, but the need to know greater.
She had arrived alone. I noticed her parking the
truck. If anyone else had come, it would have been easy enough to disappear unseen. I held my ground and woke the sleeping cat. The girl walked in, not noticing me at first, just as mortals often do, stupidly refusing to accept the presence of the inexplicable. When she finally met my eyes directly, her reaction was peculiar. She stood silently, confused at seeing a stranger in her house, but a smile began to form in the corners of her mouth. I loved when the smile suddenly melted into a mask of terror— though I must admit, it was a horrible expression to witness on a human face. She was overcome by shock as she struggled to understand the scene before her eyes. This caused a surge of pleasure in me, of course. I sent the cat forward, not to kill but to frighten. It was time to see if my suspicions were correct. As I had expected, she fled with an agility and power unusual in a human.
This simple chase had been enough to bring out the evidence I needed. Apparently, this girl, showing physical abilities far beyond the norm, had also shown that she was a summoner of animals. Some of the joy of the hunt faded when my beautiful panther was defeated, but I was still impressed by her show of power. It would be a wonderful thing to possess once I killed her.
The girl manifested her real nature. During the chase, I discovered more than I had expected. Her powers were not under her control, which was unusual. In her attempt to escape, her wings had begun to sprout. This is as dangerous for an angel on earth to do as it is for a human to get in a car with a stranger.
I had been running behind her the entire way toward the cliff, but she proved faster and more agile than I. Had she not stopped at the cliff's edge, I would never have caught up to her and seen what amazed me the most—and what has, since then, become my topmost priority in seeing again. Right where the wings were pressing hardest beneath her clothes, the shirt had begun to tear. And to my sheer amazement, the feathers that appeared were white.
Not only were there wings, but they were white! It fairly staggered the mind. She was a pure angel on earth, not a fallen one. Moments before she fell over the cliff’s edge, I managed to reach out and pluck from her shoulder a single divine feather.
I looked over the precipice, hoping to see her broken body dashed on the stones near the river, but saw nothing. There was absolutely no trace of her. She was gone. Normally, this would have set me back severely, but I had in my possession her feather, a part of her divine being. This was the greatest tool I could hope to get my hands on, for I could extract from it the saved memories of her corporeal life. I was going to learn, after all, everything I needed to know.
Divinity distilled from pure white feathers is primal—not shared—knowledge, and the darkest, cruelest, most ancient entities consider it mere legend. Even where I come from, some things are too obscured by evil to be commonly understood. I am the only being to succeed in creating what is known to my kind as a demigourd.
The demigourd is a living vessel into whose being the influence and memories of an angel are infused or combined. A demigourd can be any living creature, though its level of intelligence determines how effective it will be in receiving and transmitting information. The closer and longer the contact between a celestial or dark being and that creature, the stronger the bond or connection between them, raising the demi-gourd’s status and ability.
“Demon possession” occurs when a dark entity has been around a weakened mind long enough to begin exercising an influence on that creature. Higher-level demigourds are not only more intelligent, equaling even humans; they also have had a different, more intense contact with either a celestial or a dark being. This gives them near-angelic powers and immortality. When the fallen ones came to earth looking for humans to mate with, they never considered that those humans would eventually perish.
I placed the feather in a small bowl.
So far, demigourds produced by contact with whole, conscious celestial or dark beings have been exceedingly rare. Those humans who were able to escape became the witches, shamans, and mystic priests of all the old religions and myths.
A fragment or relic works much the same, though it is not easily to be found on earth, because an angel or demon would necessarily have to expose itself—which typically happens only during battle—by showing its wings, horns, or other nonhuman appendages. It is not every day that these things are shown in plain sight, and rarer still that a fragment can be found or taken.
I had managed to pluck a feather directly from Jade. I did not yet understand how a pure angel was living on earth, with the connection to heaven still intact. And why was such a powerful creature so poor in defending itself?
It was time to begin a new search, but I had at my disposal very good information. I was not blindly seeking some intuitive hint of an unknown entity. In fact, now I was not facing an enemy at all, but hunting prey beyond my wildest desires. Her wings were what I needed to take from her. Now I could better plan my next step. I have at my fingertips the most precious prize. I have in my grasp the chance to destroy a pure angel and create, for the first time in a millennium, an actual gourd.
11. DREAMS
