by A. L. Mengel
Antoine is pure evil.
Please heed warning in that. He has a gift, a power, and is one of the most charismatic gentlemen I know. He is very well learned and he is very well traveled. But I write you this letter to give you a warning.
You must do three things for me.
I ask you to do these things, as my friend who I lost so long ago, my friend who I have always loved and cared for, and who never understood my work.
Now you will understand.
Now that you have come to Miami, you need to erase my existence from that city. You need to start at my office, at the corner of Ponce De Leon and 5th in Coral Gables. Have your hotel arrange for a car to take you; they will know the way. What’s important though – have the car leave right after he drops you off.
When you get there, go into my office, close all the blinds, close all the doors, turn off all the lights, and dump the contents of my files on the floor in a giant pile of papers and folders. And then I want you to open the bottom right hand drawer in my desk. In that drawer, I have a jug of lighter fluid. I want you to douse that mound of papers and soak it – get it wet! And then take my ashes – take the urn and dump it on the pile of papers and light the fire. Let it burn and let me go down with it. Then get the hell out of dodge and let the building burn.
Then quickly walk down Ponce De Leon until you get to the corner of Andelusia.
This is so important, so pay attention.
You will see all the stately mansions, the magnificent royal palms, and the stunning canopy shading the street. This street is so beautiful but so evil. You need to go to One Andelusia Avenue. You will recognize the house with the giant mason columns out front from the photos that I have sent to you.
That is where Antoine lives.
It is so necessary that you destroy this house. It must be burned to the ground. But you will see houses in Florida are made of cinder block because of the violent storms, so you will have to go inside. You won’t be able to just douse this house in gasoline or lighter fluid; nothing will happen.
And this is where it will get difficult for you, and I apologize for it.
The last time that I saw Antoine, he was guiding me down into his cellar; and his cellar led down a set of stairs framed by white plaster walls like any other cellar, and it had a hanging lamp at the foot of the stairs like any other cellar, but that light did not penetrate the darkness. It hung from the ceiling, and it cast a warm, yellowish glow – but that is where the light stopped. And beyond there was blackness. And I have been there. And you don’t want to go there.
But you have to burn the house down, Douglas. You have to burn it to the ground, and you have to make it seem like the fire wasn’t started intentionally. The Miami FD is very adept at determining arson and what is not, so you will have a challenge ahead of you. But, please…see that it is done. You do not want what will be coming out of that house to be coming out into your dimension.
And, as Antoine’s house is burning and in smoky ruins, you have to travel to Miami Beach. You will need to find a way to get there completely undetected. You will have to find a nightclub that opened recently. It’s called ‘Sacrafice’.
The club was built in Saint Peter’s old Cathedral on Washington. After the fire, it sat for several years abandoned as the diocese opted to close the church due to low attendance.
But our fine friend Antoine snatched it up.
But it’s the pure personification of evil now.
He uses it as a magnet to draw the lost and forbidden – and it must be destroyed. I don’t know how you will get rid of a Cathedral. Burn it down, plant a bomb, find a way, Douglas. You are a smart man. I know you will find a way. Just do it, please.
I never understood the need for my organization. I would sit in my office, lay back in my chair, and always look to people like Antoine. He – his kind – was one of the purposes of my organization. But, to be totally honest, The Astral did not exist to interview. We did not exist to write books. We had a deeper purpose.
At least I thought so.
I remember the night that I first met Jean Carlo.
I saw him across the room. And I think he saw me. He was sitting at a long banquet table, and I don’t think he knew what exactly The Astral was about.
But he is key. And he can be of great help to you, Douglas. He was initially brought to us when he first arrived on the astral plane. He can help you, Douglas. Take heed in that.
And now, the third task.
I have booked you an open ended First Class plane ticket. All you need to do is call the airline listed on the accompanying paperwork and choose your travel dates.
I need you to fly to Frankfurt, Germany.
Darius flew to this city to bury Antoine’s ashes not long ago. But Antoine was a demon. He was an immortal.
So he could come back.
He could come back and undo everything I have been trying to do to stop him. The interviews, everything. I wanted Antoine to feel like he was a celebrity. And he did. And he was stopped.
But his heart remains.
He died an immortal, and could always return one day. His heart is the source of that.
Antoine was buried in a small, unmarked grave in a cemetery near his and Darius’ chateau near Lyon in France.
You need to travel there, south, into France and to their Chateau. Darius most likely will not be there as he is mortal at the time of this writing and only travels to Europe via commercial airliners. Most likely, the chateau is closed.
But you will need to get inside, Douglas.
You will need to look through the basement, and find the map to Antoine’s grave.
And when you do, you need to dig up his casket, find the heart, and destroy it.
Our lives depend upon it.
Darius is aging quickly and will die a quick and final death if he cannot get Antoine’s son, Roberto, to resurrect him.
The heart is the key. And you must destroy it.
For if Antoine returns, so will Darius to immortality. And Darius must be stopped.
Our future depends upon it. Darius may be humbled as a human, but as an immortal…he will transform.
Please do these things for me, Douglas. I need you to ensure that Darius never walks in this world again.
With Warm Regards,
Sheldon T. Wilkes
VI
ANIMA CHRISTI
MY WINGS were clipped.
My God has forsaken me.
I tried to drink but there was no water; I tried to eat but only took blood. My eyes saw nothing; the demons were tearing at my flesh.
I reached my arms to the sky as the blood ran down my skin.
I felt my wings extend outwards.
And then the crash; my confinement was real. I felt the crash; the rumbling of the house; the splintering of wood, the thunder above and the shaking. My abhorrent reality.
But my wings were clipped.
Torn and dripping with bright, red blood.
I remembered the hounds.
And could still feel the sharp pierce of their fangs as their claws tore into my flesh. I still saw the blood splatter on my wings as it shot from my wounds.
And on the walls. The walls were covered in blood. The bright red blood that dripped down towards the floor in a network of bloody lines.
It was hazy, but starting to come into focus.
I had been in the foyer of a mansion.
In Miami.
That’s where I had been. But where was I now?
I could no longer fly.
I raised my head towards the sky, but all I saw was darkness.
But I knew who I was.
For the sky spoke to me.
The clouds raged and tore across the sky, as purple light filtered through the darkness. The light felt warm, it felt reassuring…but it ignited memories.
Memories of me.
And through the darkness I watched, a scene pierced through, and I saw a woman, sitting on a rocking chair,
in front of an old, rickety wooden house…
…The chair creaked as she craned her head back towards the screen door behind her. She turned around in her chair, staying seated. “Need me in there, Henry?” she called in her deep southern drawl.
But there was no answer. She returned to her washing, took a few more strokes, and stopped again.
She turned again in the creaky old wooden chair. “Henry?!” she called, louder and more insistent this time.
No answer again.
Laying the wet clothes down on a towel, she dropped the washboard in the basin and wiped her hands on her apron. It was time to go inside and see what Henry was up to.
The screen door creaked as she opened it slowly, giving way to a silent house.
Even as she bent her head inside the door and strained to listen, she did not hear anything but the ticking clock nearby in the kitchen.
She peered inside and waited for the blackness to clear and her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the foyer.
“Henry, I’m gonna come up and see what she is doin’.”
She called up through the winding stairs, which rounded the foyer and the spokes in the railing, like fingers of dark wood posed as bars in front of expansive oil paintings of the owners of the mansion that reached upwards towards the darker cranberry colored walls of the second floor.
A door handle from the second floor clicked open, a door creaked open for a moment, and then silence.
“Henry?” she called again. “Do you hear me?”
The squeaky door slammed. Heavy footsteps followed, moving towards the edge of the dark wooden railing, as Mary looked up at the clear crystal chandelier as it shook from the rumbling of the footsteps.
Henry dashed down the stairs, his bight white eyes contrasting his very dark skin, his eyes open as wide as saucers, his light brown button shirt covered in bright red blood.
“I’m leavin’!” he yelled, taking steps two at a time and jumping down to the foyer, shaking the chandelier as he did so. Mary grabbed his arm and stopped him just as he placed his hand on the knob of the front door. He turned his head to face her. He paused for a moment, breathing heavy, his mouth partly open and salivating, eyes still wide and the look of fear on his face.
“What is goin’ on up there?” she asked, determined for an answer.
Henry grabbed her hand, ripping it off his arm. “I am not staying in this house!” And he stormed through the door, and ran out to the backyard into the coming sunlight. Mary stood and watched him run past the dead garden, farther off to the edge of the garden towards a path that led towards the mountains.
Mary shook her head, let out a deep breath, closed the door, and turned her attention to the upstairs. She wondered why Henry might act like this, but she was concerned about Emile.
“Emile?” she called once she got to the foot of the stairs. “You alright up there?”
There was no answer.
She ascended the stairs, each one creaking under the weight of her foot as she did so; her determined methodical course of taking each step, one by one, ate at her sanity. What was Henry so upset about? The calm, quiet, normally reserved man had just stormed past her down the stairs, running for the door in a desperate attempt to leave the house and the woman upstairs who he loved and served so loyally, the woman with whom he was so close with that he agreed to deliver her child.
Mary reached the top of the stairs and looked down the hallway, past the numerous photographs and paintings to the last white door at the end of the cranberry colored walls, shut tight with no sound coming from it.
“Emile?” she called one more time, craning her head to see past the edge of the wall.
Still no answer.
The floorboards creaked as she moved towards the door in the silence of the early morning; the new and infant light permeated the hall from a nearby window, but that light did not deter Mary’s rising fear any more than the silence added to it. So many days before, she had walked the distance from the top of the stairs to the door of the master bedroom so many times in so little time. The distance on other days seemed so insignificant. Today, it seemed almost insurmountable.
But she made it.
After a series of methodical creaking steps and racing heartbeats, she stood in front of the door, and she held her breath for a moment, moving the side of her head close to the door, listing in an effort to hear anything that might give a clue.
Silence.
“Emile, I’m comin’ in,” she said quietly and carefully, as she turned the squeaky doorknob, the concern showing on her face. “I hope you’re ok cause I’m comin’ in right now.”
Tramos cried out.
Emile was lying flat on the bed, her head back, her eyes wide open, seeing nothing. The baby wailed as the wet nurse held the little boy, comforting the baby while it cried. But the bedsheets were no longer white.
For in between Emile’s legs was a lake of blood.
Bright, red, viscous.
And her eyes were open, yet they saw nothing…
…Darius’ face fell, but he understood. Tramos looked and saw him through the darkness, a smiling, familiar face, painted with concern.
“Do you understand, Tramos? Do you see?”
Tramos sat up. “She died. When I was born. I had repressed that memory.”
“How did you know?”
There was a cascade of colorful pastel light that soared beyond them. “I didn’t. Until you showed me. Until I could see. I had so much…hatred…for my mother,” Tramos said.
“Why?” Darius asked.
“I thought she abandoned me,” he said.
“She clearly didn’t.”
Darkness surrounded Tramos, yet the light highlighted Darius, who smiled down upon him.
And then when Tramos looked up, and saw the illumination behind Darius, he saw the wings, the white wings soaring out from his back, flapping behind him.
“You’re…an angel!” Tramos said, as his mouth dropped open. “Were you one all along?”
Darius smiled as he stepped back. “You were one once too.”
Tramos got up, slowly, as the scene shifted before their eyes to a small café. Tramos sensed the familiarity in the small wooden tables and chairs. There were no patrons, only Darius and Tramos. As Darius sat in the small café, he looked up and smiled across the small, round, wooden tables and chairs. He looked up and gestured for Tramos to come. “Sit.”
Tramos could see now. The darkness abated, and he saw that he had been sitting in a small, plain, wooden coffin. The coffin of a pauper.
“That’s the coffin I was confined in for years,” Darius said. “I was in chains. Wrapped around my chest. The blood had dried on my skin after Antoine plunged the dagger into my heart, but I only existed in my mind. When Antoine tore the coffin lid away, I was merely ashes….and dust.”
“And you came back in physical form?
Tramos exited the casket and walked over towards where Darius sat. The floor did not feel like it would have felt back on the day that he had been in that small café. There was something different. Like he was walking through a painting, or on clouds.
“This is all just a recreation of our minds,” Darius said. “We all have our own individual experience here. This is yours.”
Tramos sat at a small table opposite Darius. “So why this café? How does it figure in to my experience?”
“The café connects us, Tramos. You, me, Antoine. Even Delia. It’s a location where we had all been in life, and where each of our lives took a turn…a transformation.”
A transformation.
Could it be?
Could they have evolved through death?
Taken a journey to another realm of existence beyond the end of their lives?
“When did you discover you were an angel?”
Darius looked down, leaning forward, closer to Tramos.
“It was after I passed,” he said. “I learned that I was on a mission the entire time. I had no idea
. When I accepted the gift as they call it – the immortals – I had merely been misguided. I had strayed from my true mission.”
“And what mission was that?”
Darius chuckled and lean back. He looked up into his eyes. “Well, it was to save you, Tramos. My mission was for that.”
Tramos looked up, opened his eyes, and looked up at Darius. He was not the same Darius that he had remembered. This was not the Darius who had killed for sport. This was not the same Darius whose clothes were painted with the blood of his victims.
Yet it was the same smiling face that he remembered. The same brown hair, about shoulder length, sometimes tied back; this time it wasn’t. It flowed down towards his shoulders.
His teeth were perfect.
They always had been.
His smile was seductive.
There was just something about Darius. Something about his face, his smile. And as Darius gazed downwards, as he opened his mind, his inner being, he smiled again.
“Darius,” he said. He shook his head back and forth, looking for an end to the darkness; but he found a wall of sorts, the edge of the box; some indicator that he was in a coffin, some confines; restrictions that said he was lying in a casket.
But he wasn’t.
He was in some, strange afterworld. A life after a life, and this time, he realized it was for real. Darius had been sent to guide him, to ease him into a spiritual existence.
“You are…an angel.” Darius reached out and embraced Tramos. “Now listen to me,” Darius said. “Delia is in trouble. Lucifer, the fallen angel, has been haunting her and pursuing her for the majority of her life.”
Tramos’ eyes widened. “The devil has been after her? For what purpose?”
In an instant, they sat in the café in Badulla. They were the only patrons there.
Darius ushered Tramos towards the bar. The café was devoid of patrons or a bartender. He walked behind the bar and set two bulbous wine glasses on the bar. And then he placed a slender decanter, filled with red wine on the bar top. “She drank from the decanter. They called it The Blood Decanter. You remember the talks about the man in the hood?”
