by Daniel Caet
“In fact, no,” I replied as I concentrated to light with my mind the burners that I knew were placed around the walls. “It is a much more special cave.”
“Well, I see! I don't know what you want sparrow, but you should already know that some rock walls are not going to contain me, much less are they going to save you from sending your head to the underworld as a souvenir.”
“Actually, you're wrong. These walls will. You have given me the idea, you know?” I said with half a smile. “You have defined it very well, there is nothing left of what I was. And you know what? You are right. Do you know where we are? Let me enlighten you. This cavern was created by our brother Uriel, initially conceived to contain demons, but, in reality, equally capable of containing an angel because, deep down, our essences are very similar, much more than most of our brothers want to recognise.”
“So, you think that this cave can contain me?”
“If you don't believe me, go ahead, what are you waiting for to leave?” Michael stopped for a moment, but I knew perfectly well what was happening. He was trying to transport himself and had just understood that he couldn't do it. His face was changing and becoming a mask of rage and frustration. “I guess that confirms that I'm right,” I snapped.
“Is this your idea to beat me? Locking us both here for the rest of eternity. I promise you, I'm not going to be a good life partner, damn bastard!”
“Actually,” I said, unable to avoid laughing, “my intention is for you to spend the rest of eternity here alone. You see, as you said, I have lost my angelic essence, or at least it is diluted enough not to be the same as you, and since I am not a demon either, let's say I belong to my own class, so that means I don't have any problem to transport me out of this cave. You have lost Michael; your pride has made you lose sight of the obvious!”
Consumed by the frustration and anger of knowing that he was defeated, Michael threw himself against me, but his hands were slower than me, and while I was transporting me back to the palace of Tiberius the only thing I could hear was his voice shouting my name, but my mind forgot him as soon as I found myself in the room where we had left Gaius a few moments before. I knew I should hurry up. By then the energetic noise of my appearance would have alerted Michael's guard, and they would soon appear in the room. I ran to Gaius’ body and holding his head in my hands I called him by his name in the hope that he regained consciousness. A few seconds later his eyes opened to look at me with incomprehension first and with real terror later. He separated from me as if he were turning away from a flame and began to scream as if he were possessed.
“Get away from me, don't touch me! Guard, guard, someone call the guard!”
As much as I tried to calm him it was impossible, his face was dislocated and his gaze halfway between fear and hatred screamed at me something that, unfortunately, the world would not take many years to verify. That young boy, full of life and love, had completely lost his mind and I was solely responsible. I would have liked to stay by his side, fix what I had broken, tell him that he would never have anything to fear from me, but it was too late and the pragmatic part of me made me once again put my goal before everything else. Without even thinking about what I might find, I entered his mind looking for an image, a recent memory that told me where the sword was. If necessary I would force him to take it for me and take him with me to the underworld, and I would think how to get him to give it to me voluntarily, but first of all I had to put my sword safe. But I was not prepared for what I saw.
The memory was clear as the water of a fountain, a nightly memory, in that same palace, shortly after my departure. A particularly hot night, the doors of the room where we were completely open. I could see how Gaius entered the room to find that he was not alone. Across the room a figure covered with a dark cloak that covered his head escaped through the window. Just a second, he turned to look at who had discovered him and then I could see it clearly. That figure carried in his hand what I had so longed for, my sword gleaming in the moonlight that came in from the outside. Without saying a word and without Gaius having time to react, the figure vanished through the courtyard to jump the palace wall and get lost in the night. And with him the only thing I really wanted.
Fate
Becca closed the book and put it on the bedside table. As on all previous occasions, the story contained in those pages had left her in a state of anxiety that made it impossible to sleep. Charice, however, had not been able to resist until the end of the book and she had fallen asleep a long time ago. Becca didn't want to wake her up and rose carefully from the bed to head towards the hotel bar, hoping some alcohol would calm her nerves and help her rest. It was one AM so the hotel halls were empty. Luckily, the bar of a hotel of that caliber never closed and, behind the bar, the smile of a waiter received her without question. But it wasn't the only one waiting for her at the bar. Sitting there, with a glass of some light coloured liquid in his hands, was Eustace who tried to leave as soon as he saw her approach.
“No, please, Eustace, stay. I think I'm going to be grateful for the company if you don't mind having to give me conversation.”
“I don't know how talkative I will be at this time, ma'am, but I'll do what I can,” he replied with a smile. “You can't sleep either?”
“It's becoming a bad habit lately, I'm afraid. But I am surprised that you are not sleeping either, you are always the first to get up and the last to go to bed, you should be exhausted. At least I would be.”
The man's laugh sounded light like water in a fountain, and Becca could not help but notice his perfect teeth and the beautiful lips that formed his mouth.
“I'm afraid it's something that comes with age. It is increasingly difficult to fall asleep, although it is increasingly necessary to rest”.
“Please, Eustace, as if you were one hundred years old!” said Becca, smiling back.
“Well, sometimes I feel like I am,” he replied, still smiling. “Even at the risk of being intrusive, can I ask ma’am if the lack of sleep has to do with the Marquise?” The question caught Becca by surprise, who had become accustomed to the air of respectful absence of the man.
“I suppose in part it is, yes. My life has changed very quickly in recent weeks, and let's say I'm still getting used to everything that has happened. The problem is that when I think I have accepted one of those new parts of my life something else happens, and I have to start over,” said Becca, surprising herself for the sincerity she was showing with the butler.
"But is life not exactly that? Constant change, I mean,” said the butler, looking at his glass and making Becca be quiet for a moment.
“I suppose so,” she said finally, “but my life has not been subject to that change rate frequently. I have always been the type of person who has everything under control, or so I thought, and suddenly, I feel as if someone had put me in the washing machine and it had started to spin.”
The man's laugh echoed again in the living room this time somewhat louder, making Becca run down a chill.
“Excuse me, I'm not laughing at you, ma’am,” the man tried unsuccessfully to get serious, “it's just that I love how you describe the world. In mine, I am not used to so much spontaneity.”
“Don't worry, Eustace, it's really a pleasure to see that you're not as stiff as you seem,” Becca said without thinking immediately turning pomegranate red when she realised what she had said. “I ... I'm sorry, excuse me, Eustace. I did not intend …”
The only response she received was a new series of thundering laughter from the butler that echoed throughout the room making Becca wanting to die. If they had been sitting at a table she probably would have hidden underneath, but the man seemed to be having an unparalleled moment. Becca bowed her head only gratefully because there was no one else in the room and without knowing what to do, so she did not realise that the laughter had ceased and that the man's hands gently lifted her face while his lips devoured hers. At that moment Becca felt as if a huge weight had been r
eleased from her shoulders. Suddenly, the anxiety caused by the newly discovered family history no longer existed. The pressure to which recent events had subjected her had evaporated to be replaced by another much more pleasant sensation caused by Eustace's tongue playing with her own as his hands slowly descended down her back.
Becca didn't remember exactly what had happened next, just a few of the later scenes had been etched in her mind. Their place had been taken by the sensations that had accompanied them. The anticipation of the moment in which Eustace had guided her by the hand to his room. The excitement when he had pushed her against the door to devour her mouth, her neck, her breasts. Frustration when his hands were not able to unfasten her trousers, and satisfaction when he had finally decided to break them open. The immense pleasure caused by his mouth playing between her legs or the way in which she had felt disconnected from herself when her member entered her again and again. And how, for the first time in her life, an orgasm had made her feel liberated and, at the same time, complete. Becca remembered that those scenes had been repeated several times throughout the night, although she was not able to remember how many. She only remembered that exhaustion had finally caught up with her, and she had fallen asleep, and for once, there had been no dreams, good or bad.
Becca woke up with that pleasant body ache that a night of pleasure leaves you, but it was short-lived. She immediately realised that she was alone in bed, and in the place where she hoped she would find Eustace there was only one note on the pillow with a single phrase. «I’m sorry.» Becca felt immediately sick.
“Fuck! Very mature!” she said as she got out of bed with a bitter mood and no trace of the pleasant sensation with which she had woken up. She dressed quickly and went to her room where she found a newly raised Charice who only had to look her in the eye to know that something was happening. Becca told her what had happened last night, and in her usual style, Charice could not help but bother her.
“I really don't understand why you are like this!” she told her off. “It is true that the macho does not have much idea of what a healthy sexual relationship between adults is, but girl, we all have our things. Did you have a good time? Do not answer because we both know that you have had a divine time, and that this is the only thing that matters, honey, the joy you have given your body. So, take off that bitter face and let's go see and see Sadith.”
“Sorry?” Becca replied
“Excuse me, but we're going to see her today. I know where I fell asleep last night, but where did you end? Sweetheart, it is clear that this family of yours is a gigantic puzzle, and you will not find out anything without her help. She told you to come back if you had any doubts, are you really not curious to know the rest of your family's history, your history?”
Becca knew that Charice was right and that seeing the Marquise again was the only valid option right then, so she got in the shower, she put on old jeans and trainers that she accompanied with a baggy shirt, and she said to herself that she was ready for whatever happened. Charice for her part was Charice again, and in the same time that took Becca to get ready, she was perfect for the red carpet of any world-class event. They went down to the restaurant because Charice insisted that they could not face the more than certain emotions of the day on an empty stomach, and forty-five minutes later and with the necessary dose of coffee in vein, they were ready to leave. But one more surprise awaited them. At the reception, a message from Eustace indicating that he needed to be absent that day and apologising to this madam for his sudden absence was waiting for them; the message also indicated that he had arranged for a driver to take them wherever they wanted. Half disenchanted, half relieved, Becca got into the car after Charice who gave directions to the driver in perfect French to take them to their destination.
Just half an hour later, the car stood in front of the Marquise's house behind another high-end black car with the door open by its driver. Becca could see Sadith leave the building with the intention of getting into the car, and she threw herself out of the vehicle to intercept her.
“I am here!” she said out of breath, realising too late how ridiculous the phrase was.
“Yes, so I see” Sadith replied, smiling openly. “And I'm glad you are. Unfortunately, I was going for a walk in Montparnasse. Would you like to accompany me?” Becca hesitated for a second but decided to accept.
“Yeah, right.”
“Perfect, get in the car, please. Charice, you can wait at my house, I don't think you will lack entertainment, and we will be back in about two or three hours.”
“Okay,” Charice said with a face that indicated she didn't agree at all.
The car dodged Parisian traffic until it reached the Edgard Quinet Boulevard where it stopped in front of dark green doors. Sadith asked her to get out of the car and accompany her as she crossed one of the doors. As soon as they had crossed the threshold, Becca realised where she was. It looked like a park, but it wasn't. Around her the tombstones filled everything with a slightly overwhelming grey tone. Sadith had not come to Montparnasse for a walk or shopping, she had come to the cemetery. Becca had read about that cemetery before, and she knew that some illustrious names such as Sartre or Julio Cortázar were buried in it, but she suspected that they had nothing to do with Sadith's visit. The woman continued walking without saying a word until she reached one of the intersections of the enclosure where she took the path on the right entering one of the sections of graves. Becca followed her down a narrow path until the woman stood in front of one of the gravestones where she crouched down to deposit some dark blood red flowers. Becca had not noticed the flowers before, but when she looked better at them, she realised that they were the same ones that Eustace had prepared for her to take to her mother's grave. The tomb belonged to a man, Alain Colombier, a name that said nothing to her, but that considering what she had seen so far, could be someone relevant in her family. The dates on the other hand were much more striking, the man had died in 1927. Suddenly, the sound of Sadith's singing laugh brought Becca out of her thoughts.
“Excuse me!” said the woman. “I don't intend to be intrusive, but your thoughts are like screaming in the desert, and your rational threads seem very funny to me,” she said with a kind smile.
“You were reading my thoughts?” Becca replied half scared.
“Yes, it is really easy, I will teach you how to do it, but that does not mean it is correct,” she replied. “Alain was my last husband. Today would have been his birthday, and I usually bring him flowers on this day.”
“Those flowers …”
“Yes, they are the same ones that Helel showed my little Ankh in a time already forgotten, and over the centuries they have become a kind of family emblem. Blood lilies.”
“Yes, exactly. That is the name Eustace gave them the first time I saw them in Scotland.”
“Yes, Eustace knows them well,” Sadith replied cryptically. “Do you feel like we walk? I suspect you have many questions.”
Sadith walked slowly down one of the avenues of the cemetery that was plagued with trees. On the sides you could see the tombs and the small mausoleums of which once had been wealthy families of the city who had been able to afford tombs of grandiloquent styles, many of them with authentic works of art in the form of mourning or protective angels, and Becca could not help thinking that it was almost ironic that this woman had brought her precisely to that place.
“May I ask you what you think of all this?” asked the woman suddenly. “Of everything that is happening to you, I mean.”
“I told you yesterday. I hardly understand anything that has happened to me. My life has changed so much in recent weeks that I don't know very well how to focus on it. And I haven't asked for any of this, but I know that I can't help it either because this is my life, this is who I am. What I had before was better, but it wasn't me, and at least, that much I can tell.”
“Even if you don't see it now, that's a very important step. Rebecca, you are not living anything that w
e have not been through several times before in this family. The discovery of who you are, where you come from and what is expected of you has always been traumatic for all your ancestors, regardless of age, historical age or circumstances. It is not a light load, and believe me, that is something that I understand very well. Our family has been through many things, but there has always been a constant in all our lives, destiny has always made its way to take us where we should be, to become what we should be.”
“I am not sure I believe in destiny. I have always thought that we all build our own lives, it is the only freedom we have left.”
“And yet, I could give you hundreds of examples in which it has not been so,” she replied as one who sweetly indoctrinates a child. “Without going any further, myself.” Becca said nothing but she knew that her eyes were asking thousands of questions at a time and Sadith noticed it too. “The volume I gave you yesterday, do you mind telling me what historical era it covered?”
“Ancient Rome,” Becca replied without giving her more details, not out of mistrust, but because she knew they would not be necessary.
“Oh, yes! It was a time of great frustration for your father. He never told me all the details, but from him and from others I have an idea of what happened. Let me show you how sometimes destiny is undeniable and takes us to where we should be whether we want to or not, let me tell you a little about my story after Egypt.”
“Yes, please,” Becca said quietly to hear the woman's warm, captivating voice.
«I left the underworld with the bitterness of those who see their fears come true and the pain of those who have not been able to save someone they love. I knew that the acts of Helel had only responded to his nature, something he could not escape even if he wanted to, the hunger that nests in the guts of those who have been educated all their life in the idea of being the culmination of creation. But I was also aware that his ascension to the throne of the underworld placed all of us who had some connection with him in a very dangerous situation. It was obvious that whoever had subjected Helel to the punishment of living as a human was someone with enough power not to appreciate the idea that he had become lord of hell, with the power that came with it. On the other hand, I had no doubt that, sooner or later, Helel would not hesitate to use that power to take revenge on all those who had placed him in that position, and that this desire for revenge would plunge the world into chaos. In that power game, humans, and in particular those that could be used as a throwing weapon against Helel, would be a primary objective and the first to lose out.
