First, the panther leaped to the ground and lumbered to Angelique’s side to lick her hand. The lions growled low in their throats, surprised to be free in the night. Then the monkeys were let out and they immediately scrambled off into the darkness. The elephant was unchained from the iron bar attached to the back of the lion cage. It shuffled off, following the monkeys’ lead. Finally came the white wolf, an albino captured in the far north and sold to the circus. It stood at Angelique’s side as if it would never leave until she gave it a command Nisroc didn’t understand. Then it strode off majestic into the night. When all the cages were open and all the occupants gone, only then did Angelique turn to him and gestured that he lift the little chest to follow her.
On the way to the wharves Nisroc did not see even one of the freed wild animals. He had no idea where they’d disappeared, but since the circus was on the outskirts of London, he figured they’d headed away from the city rather than toward it.
He and Angelique found the ship that was bound to leave in the morning for their destination. She had him put the chest down near a shipping crate and then, folding her skirts, she sat cross-legged on the ground. She patted the space next to her and he folded his long legs and sat down. She snuggled under his arm, positioning her head on his wide chest. “Rest a while,” she said. “We’ll get the tickets at sunrise.”
He sat like a statue, his arm around her little shoulders. He felt her breathing slow then grow regular. She slept. He was too excited to sleep. Someone would have to knock him over the head to make him unconscious for he’d never give into it on his own. Not this night, his first night back on Earth, back in a human body, alive. He listened to the near waters of the sea as it lapped against the ships and pilings of the wharf pilings. He smelled the sharp scent of salt water and wet wood. He stared overhead at the night sky filled with stars. The moon had not yet risen. His thoughts recoiled from that vast overhead emptiness. It was where he had come from and he hoped not to go back there for as long as possible. Look at Angelique. She had carried this little child’s body through three hundred years and still it functioned. It did not grow or age, but it still lived just as any other human body lives. With angelic possession her body could go on for a thousand years. And so could his.
A thousand years!
His smile widened and his teeth felt the chill of the night as they were exposed to the slight wind sweeping across his face.
Just spending these few hours in a body was a gift beyond all measure, but the idea he might be able to live hundreds of years overwhelmed him. Tears stood in his eyes, but he refused to shed them. He brought his gaze down from the night heavens to the little girl’s face resting on his chest. She was a beautiful little thing, her skin dark, almost bronze, her hair raven, her lashes against her cheeks long and black and feathery. She was a small exotic beauty. Her little hand that rested on his midsection was perfect, tiny, unwrinkled, and so utterly beautiful. It was not going to be hard to adore her and follow her wherever she wished to travel. She was…angelic.
All night long he thought his wandering thoughts and let himself drown in physical sensations, the way only a newborn might. What a glorious night it was, the best of all nights, the ultimate in his experience so far.
#
Nisroc handled the buying of the tickets and getting them settled on the passenger ship bound for a new land. They were given a cabin with twin swinging hammocks and a small porthole looking out on the ocean at sea level. Neither of them suffered anything as pedestrian as seasickness, but it seemed Angelique found the cabin claustrophobic so she insisted they spend most of their time on deck.
This was a trial to Nisroc since it meant he stay “in character” while on the deck interacting with crew and other passengers. He was “Father.” Angelique was “Dear Daughter” as in, “Dear daughter, please don’t lean so far over the railing, you might fall overboard.” Or “My dear daughter has missed her mother, but the two of us have learned how to make do the best we can.”
He never failed to miss her silent cues so when on the third day of the long voyage a female child approached them where they sat in deck chairs, he knew there might be trouble. He felt it in the air, felt it on his skin like a cold cloak laid over him. Angelique stiffened in her chair and she darted a dark look his direction. He thought she hissed in displeasure, but he might only have imagined that.
The child kept coming until she stood in front of Angelique. She said, “Hi, my name is Daisy. What’s yours?”
Angelique spoke her name, but as she did so she turned and looked at Nisroc squarely on as if to say DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.
He cleared his throat to get the child’s attention. “Uh, Angelique’s got a sore throat. She doesn’t feel like playing.” Angelique turned back to glare at the girl, but the other child picked up no clues at all.
“That’s okay, I can just sit down beside you and we can play something easy. See this rock?” Daisy pulled a smooth stone from the pocket of her long skirt. “I found it on the beach weeks ago, during our travels to London. We can play catch with it.”
“No, uh…” Nisroc began, but was interrupted by Angelique.
“Sure, here, let me see it.”
Daisy handed over the favored souvenir to what she hoped would be her friend during the passage. As soon as Angelique had hold of the stone, she drew back her arm and threw it, causing it to arc high in the air and just fall short of making it over the rail into the sea. It slid along the rough boards before halting against the bulwark.
Daisy jumped up with a cry and ran to retrieve the stone. She turned back, tears in her eyes. “You tried to throw it away,” she said.
“Did I?” Angelique’s voice was sweet syrupy with sarcasm. “Oh, Father, did I?” She turned to wink at him.
Nisroc’s lips tightened in disapproval. “You needn’t have done that.”
“You’re mean,” Daisy said, backing away.
“Come here and let me show you magic,” Angelique said sweetly.
Daisy hesitated, unsure of the situation. Maybe she had misjudged the girl, maybe it was just a game.
“Come on, look here.” Angelique gestured her over. “You’ll really like it. It’s something quite amazing.”
Daisy came back slowly, chin to chest, obviously on the defense.
“Let me see your rock again,”
Daisy shook her head. “You’ll throw it away.”
“I won’t, I promise. I want to show you something special.”
Daisy reluctantly gave her the rock.
Angelique closed her little hand over it and immediately opened it to reveal a tiny baby bird. A featherless thing, blind, beak opening pitifully, little ribbed chest heaving.
Daisy’s eyes widened and her mouth opened.
Even Nisroc was stunned. It was obvious Angelique had learned a few tricks during her incarnation.
“Now watch again,” Angelique said, closing her fingers over the baby bird. She opened her hand quickly and there sat the rock on her palm.
“How’d you do that?” Daisy came forward quickly, reaching for the rock.
Angelique closed her fist and Daisy halted, looking up.
Angelique’s face hardened and her eyes narrowed. “I can do that to you, too, if you don’t go away, little girl. I can turn you into a tiny baby bird or a horny old frog or a long-tailed rat running for cover in the holds of this ship. Your parents will never see you again. You’ll die a grisly death of starvation as a tiny bird, or be thrown overboard as a slimy frog or be crushed by a boot as a marauding rat. NOW GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE.”
Daisy stood frozen. She had heard the threat and now seemed to be processing it. Turn her into a bird, a frog, a rat? Looking into Angelique’s eyes convinced her. She stepped back. Her lips trembled. “You can have it. You can have my rock.”
Then she spun around and ran as hard as she could on the shifting deck to the stairs leading down into the passenger cabins. As the top of her head disappeared below
decks, Nisroc turned to Angelique. “Was that necessary? What if she tells her parents and they come complaining about your behavior?”
Angelique shrugged.
Nisroc sighed and shifted in his deck chair. He stared out to sea, that endless road of turbulent water and the distant lonely horizon. Puffy clouds drifted over the light blue sky, and the sun stood at its zenith.
Yes, he was human. He had been granted, by this child, by this Queen of the Fallen, another chance at life. Yes, he was banished from God, cast out into the regions that was nothing and nowhere. But how much was he going to have to pay for the privilege of life on Earth? And how much sorrow and despair was his queen going to bestow on her fellow humans before all was said and done? She was not so much evil as dispassionate. Not so much child as old intelligence. And not so much angel as devil.
Was he, too, made of the same stuff, since he was one of the Fallen, one of the Separated? Was he, too, capable of cruelty, avarice, deceit, and corruption? Or more? Murder? Perhaps even murder.
He did not know. But he suspected he was not the same as Angelique. He was not a Destroyer, that much he knew beyond doubt. He was a sinner, a lost soul, and a condemned being, but he was no Angelique. There was no one in any age, in any realm, like Angelique.
It was the first time since drawing breath that he questioned his existence in the world. Now he knew it was not always going to be a series of exciting sensations, appreciation of the physical body, and joy of living in the world at large. No, it was going to be…
He knew now it would be…
It was going to be…his worst fear. The future felt dark now, full of storm and lightning and destruction. He was going to be a part of it. He was Angelique’s pawn. Would she have really turned the other child into a small, helpless, threatened bird or animal? He knew the answer to that question was yes, absolutely yes. She had cared no more for that child than she would have cared for a spider or an ant. She would have squashed the life from it without hesitation.
This new life with Angelique was going to be bad.
It was going to be…bloody, bloody…
Hell.
#
Everyone thought it a scandal when the wire-walker ran off with the child animal trainer. The manager even threatened to call in authorities, but no one listened to him.
On the ship, Angelique explained to Nisroc what condition the world was in now. It had changed so drastically since Caesar’s time that it was hardly recognizable. Nisroc found it dark, dreary, and barbarian, but it was still Eden compared to the outer void and he loved it for that. He reveled in the winds, the scents, the tastes, the tactile touch of branch, leaf, cloth, hair, flesh, dirt, metal. He was like a child let out of prison, running around snatching at things, hugging them, opening his mouth to the downfall of rain to taste the waters of heaven, and when not being watched, eating two-fisted, stuffing his mouth with all the delights of the earth.
“We haven’t much money left, so we must devise a scheme to get more,” she warned.
“I’ll find a way to take care of us,” he said. Nothing could diminish his good humor. He was human again! He was out of the darkness! Though he feared Angelique's behavior and her morals when dealing with the humans, he still wanted to thank her ever few minutes for giving him back life.
She looked up at the big blond Swede, “You better. I don’t like starving.”
Nisroc grinned and set off toward the wheel house to talk to the captain.
Angelique stayed behind, watching him go, his spirits so high. She would again voyage across a great sea, but this time she would walk the decks with her handsome father and feel the sea wind on her cheeks. This time she would not be a stowaway locked in a musty trunk.
She hurried to catch up with Nisroc, excitement bringing a blush to her face.
CHAPTER 15
Conquering Charlotte, North Carolina
It was a dirty hole of a town overrun with the French. It had taken Nisroc and Angelique months to cross the ocean and then to find a scout to take them South. Months more were spent hacking through bush and thistle and thorn, through forests, over rivers, around lakes and marshes, to get the pair to the small hamlet called Charlotte.
“It’s hardly worth it,” Angelique said.
Nisroc glanced around the wharf and up the slight muddy incline to the town. “For once I agree. Why did we have to come here anyway?”
“I was told it was a multi-racial town where newcomers can get lost—not that they said it that way. They said there were coloreds here and the yellow man and so many different peoples it was a cauldron.”
“Do we want to be lost?”
Angelique shrugged. She lifted her skirts and started up toward the town. “We do for a while.”
Nisroc followed without a word. He never argued or rebuked his small mistress. She could send him back into the dark faster than blinking her eyes. She was his god, as much as the thought made him despair. It was either do as she said or give up this earth.
He could not give up this earth.
He also had a small hope that one day his power would increase to the point he could be free of Angelique. It was not probable, he knew, but without that hope he did not know how he could go on. The one true God they had both deserted would never have made him a slave this way. But it was eons late to regret old choices.
Once on the street, Nisroc fell into the pattern he had put to such good use on landing in the New World. He found an outdoor store bench where Angelique could sit, where she could tell people, if they inquired, that her Papa was inside shopping. Then Nisroc went in search of prey.
Stalking the people of this backwater town wasn’t easy, for they seemed to be an alert, superstitious bunch, but the problems weren’t insurmountable. Within two hours Nisroc had stalked, choked to a faint, and robbed four pedestrians. The coin sack he carried bulged with coin, which he brought back to show Angelique.
She was pleased, but only showed it with a little smile. He had done his job, that was all.
That night they stayed in a hotel full of cowpokes, trappers, sailors, and dockworkers. Later in the night, Nisroc, who required so little sleep or rest, stalked the midnight city and relieved more patrons of their riches they carried on their persons—most of it by slight of hand. By morning, they were able to secure a better room in a cleaner, more upscale hotel. It was all uphill from there.
#
The years sped past, with both fallen angels perfecting both their relationship and their place in society. Angelique met with Haitians, as they reminded her of her old homeland, and adopted their religion, especially the rituals surrounding voodoo. With her own innate powers, she was able to mystify and frighten her little group into submission. They all followed her. Anyone too afraid ran away, leaving the city and the demon girl behind.
Within a hundred years, voodoo went underground, sent there by traditional religions. Within another hundred years, it became a tourist attraction sporting shops full of gimcracks and factory-made plastic skeletons. But all the while Angelique took advantage of her group, pooled their resources, and with Nisroc as the named owner, became the largest holder of businesses in all of the now burgeoning city. They owned not just the tourist shops, but hotels, warehouses, ships, and an ever widening interest in oil interests in and around the area.
They were not only rich; they were super rich. Nisroc kept all their holdings under surveillance and in order. He proved to have a natural businessman’s temperament and an intelligence far surpassing any of his competitors. It didn't hurt that he was a beautiful creature with a charming way about him. Many men were fed a scheme as if fed a sunny warm cream and only later found it curdled.
Soon they had homes and villas in Nantucket, in New York City, in Chicago, and overseas in several European countries. All of it was on paper for neither of them traveled far from the city they'd adopted.
But Angelique soon tired of acquisitions and money.
“What else do you wan
t?” Nisroc asked.
“I want to bring the rest of them down.”
Nisroc’s face showed surprise. “But I thought you only needed me. Why do we need the others?”
“To finish what we started.”
He glanced away from the child. “You mean…the rebellion.”
“Yes. It isn’t finished. We all need to be in human form again so He knows we are the favorites, not these pitiful bodies we occupy.”
Nisroc loved the body. It could feel. He even liked an occasional pain; it made him know he was truly alive. He almost understood God’s love for mankind, his greatest creation. Yes, it still hurt that the angels were set below man, but he almost…almost understand why.
He did not really want to go to war with God again. They had lost heaven before. If they lost earth,too…
“We won’t,” Angelique said.
She had read his mind. “And if we do?”
“Then we will be back in the void separated, same as before.”
“If we lose again, there may not even be that left for us.”
“Shut up, Nisroc.” She turned her back on him.
He left the room quietly. How many of the other fallen angels would she bring to earth? All of them? It could take a lifetime, finding a proper body for everyone.
But he knew Angelique. If she said she could do something he might as well consider it done. Just the very thought of her ambitious plan made him cringe. He shook himself and hurried to another part of the house. He halted. He'd go to the kitchen and make himself a sandwich with a big slab of roast beef the cook had prepared. He'd eat until his belly swelled and hurt him, that is what he would do...
Nisroc paused in the long hall outside the library door where he’d left Angelique. He listened, stilling his heart, slowing his breath. He listened for a protest from heaven. When he didn’t hear it, as he expected he wouldn’t, he walked slowly to the kitchen, but once there his appetite had fled. Instead, he wanted out of the house and away from Angelique and her madness. He left quietly by the front door, his chin to chest and gaze lowered to the earth. For the first time in thousands of years he felt the first blush of fear.
HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels Page 9
