War Angel (The Tales of Tartarus)

by A. L. Mengel

  She carried Delia to the chair. She sat and held Delia on her lap as thunder rumbled overhead. She rocked in a rocking chair with Delia on her lap. “There, there, little Delia. Dry your tears my little one.” She smoothed Delia’s hair.

  “We are moving into dark times,” Delia said, raising her eyes up to look at her Aunt.

  Auntie Thelma shook her head. “Oh dear, you must miss your father so very, very much. But how do you speak with such mature words?”

  Delia straightened herself and looked up at Auntie Thelma. “The dead shall rise again. They will fight their way out of their graves, clawing through the ground with their hands. They will be judged. When the blood rain cometh…”

  Auntie Thelma gasped and her mouth fell open. “Delia! Where do you hear such things! Such heresy!” She got up from the rocking chair and lay Delia back down on the bed, and Delia smiled, drawing the sheet up to cover herself. She burrowed into the pillow for a moment, and then sat up. She sat up with her legs crossed in the center of the bed. “Auntie, I speak because I know. I speak because I listen…”

  Auntie Thelma stood and looked down at Delia with wide eyes. Her mouth gaped open. “You evil little child! How could you say such things?! Of bodies crawling out of the ground and blood rain? What is this, Delia? What has become of you?!”

  Delia rested her chin on her hands and raised her eyes to look at Auntie Thelma. Delia glared up at her. “Do you not remember? What he did to mother?”

  Auntie Thelma took a step back and shook her head. “No…no…you don’t know what you speak of, little girl. He was a good man.”

  Delia wrinkled her forehead into a scowl. “You were not there. Not in the house, Auntie Thelma.” She flopped back onto the bed, shifted around and buried her face in the pillow.

  “You need some time alone. To grieve. I’m going to leave you to it and you can come out again in the morning when you have come back to your senses. No more of this talk of bodies rising from the dead. What speaking for a little girl!”

  Auntie Thelma shook her head and headed out of the door. It shut silently, and the lock clicked just moments later.

  After Auntie Thelma left the room, Delia turned back around and lay on her back on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. She noticed the warm glow that the lights brought to the plaster and studied a tiny crack near the hanging fan. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then she heard a creak in the silence.

  Just a single creak.

  But it was a familiar creak. One she had heard many, many times before.

  It was the rocking chair creak.

  She opened her eyes and sat up, and looked towards the corner, but it was covered in shadows. “Hello? Who is there?”

  There was a crash of thunder and the rain fell harder as the lights flickered.

  She laid back down, pulling the blanket up, covering her head. She shut her eyes tightly. The winds picked up outside and she could feel the house shake as the storm approached. The wind whistled around the corners outside her window.

  And then there was another creak, and Delia flung the covers off her.

  She propped herself up on her arms.

  There was a deep, sinister laughter as the creaking started again.

  It sounded masculine.

  Grating.

  “Who is that?” she called out into the silence, to no answer. Just the sound of fresh falling rain outside her window.

  And then the creak came again – slow, methodic, determined. She looked over in the corner towards the rocker. Still bathed in darkness.

  Utterly obscured.

  But the creaking sounded heavier. Deeper than the first few times. As if someone were sitting in the rocking chair. Someone heavy.

  She looked at the small, wooden chair. The darkness surrounded it, but a small plume of light highlighted the runners. The rocking chair sat across from the end of her bed, in the dark corner. In the same spot it had been for as long as she could remember.

  Auntie Thelma sat in that very chair on many nights, singing her to sleep. And before that, there were muffled memories of mother sitting in that very chair as well. Nights when she lay her head on the comfort and warmth of mother’s chest, treasuring the softness of her breasts, listening to her breathe in and out, and feeling the methodic rhythm of her mother’s heartbeat against her back.

  She could see herself reach around and twirl mother’s long, brown hair as she lay her head on her shoulder.

  But mother was gone.

  And the small, wooden chair was empty.

  Wasn’t it?

  She lay back on the bed, pulled the sheets up towards her chin and looked over at the door. A sliver of light shined from underneath the door, highlighting the wood planks. There were perhaps ten or fifteen feet of floor between her bed and the door.

  Her vision was broken as thunder crashed directly overhead and Delia gasped. She jumped and gasped, pulling the blanket up closer to her neck.

  The lights went out and Delia closed her eyes tight.

  The creak filled the room, slow and methodical against the silence. Someone heavy was in the rocking chair. She knew it now. “Why can’t I see you?” she whispered from beneath the sheets.

  And then, without opening her eyes, she knew who it was.

  “I have been watching you…” The voice was grating and deep. Masculine. Raspy.

  Her heart pounded as the creaking continued, back and forth. She felt a rumble in the floor, which reached up towards the bed.

  Back and forth…

  Back…and forth…

  And then the creaking stopped.

  And then again there was silence.

  All she heard again was the light falling rain pelting against the window pane. Was he teasing her? She shifted to her back, making sure not to uncover the sheet. She lay, her eyes now open, seeing the floral pattern that Auntie Thelma had chosen for her, and listened.

  She covered her eyes with her hands, as she took her feet and pulled the sheet down.

  She slowly parted her fingers to see. The long slivers of light, nestled between the dark columns of her fingers, didn’t paint the picture that she had hoped. To the direction at the end of the bed, in the dark corner, where the rocker was.

  She could sense someone was there. But still could only see darkness. Who was rocking in that chair?

  And then a sense of fear washed over her.

  She shivered.

  But she didn’t have to ask the question, and she already knew. She drew her knees up close to her chest.

  The creaking stopped as the voice came again, deep, grating, and masculine. “So you finally recognize me.”

  She held her breath as she heard the methodic creak.

  Back and forth…back and forth…

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  She heard him laugh.

  It was deep.

  Demonic sounding. She shuddered and peeked again. There was some movement in the darkness this time.

  “I’m revealing myself to you,” he said. “Only a blessed few receive this opportunity…”

  Delia opened her mouth, face still covered with her hands. She could see the glimpse of a muscular leg towards the bottom of the chair. But it didn’t look like a human leg. The skin was scaly. Red-tinted. Perhaps brown.

  “I…don’t believe in you,” she finally managed to say.

  He laughed again. “Oh, little Delia. You sweet little girl. You know I don’t reveal myself to those who don’t, right? You know that I work best when people deny me? But you…you believe in me. That I know for certain!”

  She slowly drew her hands down and looked in the corner. He was still shrouded in darkness. She closed her eyes and turned her head away.

  “Do you think you can come down here…to this Earthly, physical realm…where I reign freely…and think that you would not be called to serve me?”

  She opened her eyes and looked over towards the dark corner. A sliver of light emanated across the room from the window
. But little Delia did not need the light, but despite, it shined against what she had been struggling to see: the wooden rocker, the light hand rails moved back and forth like coupling rods on a locomotive.

  She could now see his arm.

  It was red, quite muscular.

  Resting on the handrail.

  She heard him breathe in deeply, chesty, full of mucous. Seemingly patient. Waiting for her?

  Perhaps.

  She sat up in the bed and her eyes adjusted to the darkness. “I see you over there,” she said. Her voice took a harsh, commanding tone. “In the light. But you avoid the light.”

  “Do you not think that I knew that? That I would choose to reveal myself to you or not? Stupid, silly little girl.”

  She looked up at the light that was filtering into the tiny, dark room. It reached across towards the bed, and she saw it illuminate her arm.

  She shuffled out of the covers and swung her legs from the bed. She stood on the cold, barren wood floor. “You have been following me! Why do you follow me? Why are you here?” Her head snapped around as she looked over towards the foot of the bed. She felt a stir in her gut as she saw the glint of light on the muscular arm. Red, roping flesh, leading up to a horn that caught the light for an instant.

  “You will not capture me!” she shrieked.

  Footsteps ran down the outside hallway, heeled shoes clicking on wood. The doorknob rattled. “Delia! Delia are you alright?! I’m going to get the key!”

  But Delia did not listen.

  She faced the rocking chair and looked at the muscular demon rocking back and forth.

  “You come to me as if I have some sort of an allegiance to you,” Delia said. “I do not. And will not.”

  “Tu credis in Deus?”

  “Do I believe in God?! How dare you question my faith!”

  He laughed. “I don’t have to question your faith. It is you that is questioning. I saw you in the cemetery. I saw you look to the sky. I hear your thoughts. Of dismay. Of disbelief!”

  Delia stamped her foot on the floor. Over and over. “You do not have authority to eavesdrop on conversations with my God!”

  He leaned back in the chair and chuckled. “Oh, but I do. And I will. Just like He…I am always there, Delia. Always around. You can deny me all you want. It will just give me more power!” He laughed again.

  Delia ran to the door and shook the knob. “Auntie Thelma! Where did you go? Come and get me!” She banged her hand against the wood frame. But there was no answer.

  He rose from the rocking chair and the floor creaked under his weight. He shuffled over towards the windows, his hands clasped behind his back. Delia saw a set of horns at the top of his head; a large, muscular frame. He continued as he faced the window, looking outwards. “He was once my God too. And I know you are angry with Him. I share your emotion, little one. You are so…successful…in what you do. But you feel like a failure, don’t you? Don’t you, Delia?”

  Delia loosened her grasp on the knob and looked towards the floor. “I have failed my God.”

  “You see, Delia…I don’t think that. I think you are the perfect warrior. You are the one who is battle assigned. The perfect fighter. You were sent to protect…what? A violent man who had a knack for beating his wife. How many times were there bruises? And then he finally killed her. Now he’s rotting in the ground in a coffin and you’re free of that little assignment.”

  Delia shook her head and took several steps back. She glared at him. “Get out of my house. I am doing what I was sent here for! How dare you cast a seed of doubt!”

  He chose not to listen. “But what if you were given a different cause to fight for?”

  He threw his head back in laughter. “Oh, I will go little one. But don’t be denied. I know you. I know where you come from. And I will visit you again.”

  Delia closed her eyes. “Go, Lucifer, go!”

  She listened as the thunder crashed overhead. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room as he disappeared into the darkness. The rocking chair still rocked, now empty, as the winds increased outside. The house shook.

  She shut her eyes tightly and saw a field of skulls under a red sky painted with black clouds. “Tartarus!” she screamed. “You will not take me! You will not keep me from my true mission!”

  She opened her eyes and saw the field of skulls. She remembered the place. From her dreams, when she was a little girl. But she knew. She knew she had been there before.

  There was a certain familiarity about the place.

  She saw the skulls bulge in a small circular area. Some of them were displaced, as the skulls crashed against one another with deep thuds as the darkness penetrated the sky above. “Go! Leave me!”

  Delia saw the tips of wings as an angel rose from underneath the skulls.

  And there she was. She saw the angel rising from the field of skulls, reaching down towards the lake of writhing bodies, gently picking up each one, wiping the body down; taking the dirty, trying to make it clean.

  As the angel rose further, Delia saw the wings were broken; the feathers made of stone and crumbling. A sullen angel. Broken, bruised, bloodied.

  “Who are you!” Delia cried, as the darkness reached across the sky.

  But the figure rose further, up towards the angry sky, and Delia saw her closed eyes, looking downwards, crying tears of blood. A rope of thorns shot out of the bed of skulls, tearing towards the sky.

  Delia gasped but said nothing.

  The roping thorns reached across the sky and tore across the perimeter, as they levitated in front of the rising woman.

  There she was.

  An angel.

  Broken, bloodied wings. Sad, sullen eyes.

  And then Delia saw the dark figure in the distance. Hovering like a dark cloud. It was far away, difficult to discern what or who it was, but she knew who the darkness was. It seemed to be moving towards her. She looked back at the angel, who rose high above the skulls, and then she gasped.

  Then came the same dark, deep demonic voice: “Watch!”

  She recognized that voice. The same deep, grating voice from the room that came from the rocking chair.

  “This will happen to you!” he said.

  The thorns roped around the angel as she cried out. Her eyes opened wide as the thorns pierced her skin, and she hung her head low as the blood flowed down her body. But Delia had not been prepared. Her mouth dropped open when the angel turned to stone, a monument rising from the field of skulls.

  “This will happen to you!”

  Delia took several steps back, and looked over at the dark figure, which had hovered next to the angel. “You will not take me! I will not follow you!”

  The deep grating laughter came again. The dark figure gestured to the angel. “That is what she said,” he said. “And do you see her? Do you see her now?! Bearing all of their sins! Thorns tear into her! She bleeds their transgressions into the sea of souls!”

  Delia opened her eyes and looked up towards the sky. The black clouds swirled above her head, and the red sky seemed to darken. “Why can’t I wake up?! Why am I not in my room?!”

  “Because you are the war angel!”

  Laughter followed.

  Delia paused and looked at the dark, misty figure. She shook her head. “No. I have not had any sort of directive from the divine!”

  Laughter again.

  “The war angel? You call me that? Who is this war angel?”

  “I call you that because you are!” The darkness moved towards the stone angel, whose face was frozen with tears of blood, and wrapped in roping thorns. “And look over there! That is your fate! That is what you will become!”

  “I will not become an angel wrapped in thorns!”

  And then he appeared, instantly in front of her face. She shuddered. The horns above his head were real. They reached up toward the swirling black clouds, and seemed to have no end. He stunk of rotting flesh; like decaying bodies and excrement. She tried to hold her breath, wi
ncing.

  “Do you not see? You are the next war angel, Delia! You are the chosen one! Why do you think I come to you if not for a higher purpose?”

  She opened her eyes wide. Her mouth dropped open and she stepped backwards. “No! You will not give me any fate! We will defeat you!”

  “That’s what you think!”

  Delia took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “Those roping thorns are the transgressions of those she saved. You cannot save everyone, Delia. Save yourself! Save yourself from this fate!”

  She glared at the dark figure. “And how do I save myself? Why should I save myself above others when my mission is to protect?”

  The dark figure bellowed out. “You will only save yourself by ignoring the others. You focus on yourself. You acquire nice things. Fanciful material possessions. And when you are given the opportunity to get money, you jump at it! Now go!”

  She catapulted backwards and the sky turned black.

  “Now go!”

  Who am I? Go, Lucifer, go!

  SHE OPENED her eyes.

  She wasn’t in the same little room with the wooden floor and the rocking chair. It still seemed dark, and it was hard to see. But it was different. Very different. She took a breath in through her nose. Smelled different.

  It didn’t even feel like France anymore. As the fuzziness in her vision cleared, she saw a small room with a dirt floor. Plain stone walls. It smelled of animals and cooking, although she could not place which food.

  Her head was pounding and she winced.

  Was she not having a conversation with the devil just moments ago?

  Do you hear me? Do you listen to me? I am still speaking in your ear. I still live in your head…

  She shuddered as the voice returned as she lay back down and groaned. And then she stopped.

  Opened her eyes again.

  She looked down at herself and saw herself laying on an earthen floor, on a thin mat. No bed. No sheets, no pillow. Across the tiny room, sunlight filtered in through a torn, red tapestry, blinding her for a moment. But there was some assurance to the light. Even though she felt so foreign in her surroundings, as she looked at her arm, the light highlighted the roping musculature. But she could feel the warmth.