An Angel's Touch

by Susan D. Kalior

  I seized her, and drilled my tongue between her lips, kissing cold and hard. Taz’s loved that. She went wild. She was open, trusting me to impregnate her—a fatal mistake. She could never understand that my love for Jen would drive me to forfeit that pleasure and the greater pleasure of battling her one day.

  I transmogrified into my dragonman form, so slowly that she barely noticed. When in the third realm, if I took her in that form, her spirit was mine.

  Feeling hard scales against her breasts, she stepped back. “Why do you take form?”

  “All the better to—” I dug my nails into her stomach, pushing my hand inside her, shoving it upwards,“—eat you with.”

  Her eyes popped. I yanked out her pumper. Blood flew into the air and splattered the furniture—the smell of gore, the sight of hell. Oh yeah! She sank to the floor. Crimson fluid pooled around her sumptuous body. Appetizing yes, but I’d choose innocence any day. I hissed fire at her.

  She had trusted a Tazmark, somehow convinced I’d not try to kill before mating. She was too stupid to be a Taz. Her essence lifted from her body. I sucked in the charged vapor, growing heady with a ‘six quarts of scotch’ sensation. Now this . . . this was nourishment! One Tazmark down, nine to go.

  I sank my fangs into the heart muscle and swallowed my first bite. I lavished in the feel of blood bathing my snout, bubbling around my nostrils where air came out. I sniffed it in. Her history played in my mind. Her victims now were mine. All she ever was, or was to be, was now a part of me. I devoured the remains of her pumper, barely chewing, in a hurry to rescue Jen. The hotel room door blasted open behind me, rattling a painting on the wall.

  I didn’t bother to wipe the blood off my face when I faced the door. Angel Boy stood paralyzed in the door jam: eyes bulging, mouth gaping. Just the man I wanted to see.

  Chapter Eight

  I took human form before Angel Boy’s eyes, just so he could see it was me, and behold what I could do. I magically reeled him forward, step by step, wanting the scene to sink into him. He perused my artistry, the red painted body and the crimson I’d added to the décor of the room. Pretty.

  Angel Boy started panting so hard, I thought he might fly away.

  I drank in his shock with a sinister smile. It was but late afternoon and I would be digesting both Tazmark and Shen before nightfall. Such an occurrence was unheard of. Having Jen around had benefits. She attracted the most appealing victims.

  Angel boy stood there gulping, glancing at the mutilated mess, searching for his voice, as Shens are compelled to give speeches.

  I’d never seen a body quake so violently, Jen inclusive. Of course, she’d never seen the half of what I could do. Never seen what Angel Boy here was seeing. However, unlike Jen, he was a new earth soul, untouched by earth’s characteristic assault. I was his first terror. I loved my occupation.

  Finally, his words spit out so hard he almost choked on them. “You killed Jenséa!”

  “That’s not Jen,” I said in a low cool voice, “I’d never harm Jen.” I stood there naked, feeling wild. I penetrated his accusing glare with my magical gaze that made my eyes seem to spin. “You . . . on the other hand . . .” I moved my essence into his being, my hypnotic eyes whirling, whirling.

  “Where’s Jenséa?” He edged his way to the door that I magically closed and locked.

  He turned to the door and jimmied the handle frantically. Slowly, he rotated to face me, his back pressing against the knob. His wide eyes begged mercy.

  My orange eyes turned red.

  “What are you?” he mumbled.

  “Your master,” I said, standing there bold.

  He swallowed hard and shook his head. He wondered if he was dreaming. He was not. I drove my essence further inside him. Oh what delicious brain energy. What succulent heart emanation. Pity I could not kill him as a Tazmark. He was clean, a young Shen, with no earth history to mar him, yet no experience to empower him—much. He emitted no call to suffer, nor desire to cause it, not even to me.

  Call or not, he’d die, I hoped. Tazmark Rule #3: Chaos is wreaked only upon those who call. I’d probably pay some cosmic price for breaking that rule, or maybe there would be divine intervention for him to thwart my plan, but the human in me would endeavor to kill him, even though it would be a waste of a Shen. If I waited a few hundred years, he’d eventually call for suffering. Earth was a hard place for his kind. Yet, killing him now would delete him from the picture, a definite improvement.

  My eyes flared. I circled my fingers around his neck. He pushed his hands against my chest like a feeble woman. He could never protect Jen, not even from a common teenage hoodlum. His weakness infuriated me. With him . . . I’d have fun. Good, old-fashion, sadistic fun. Seizing his neck, I hurled him to the floor, and cemented my bare foot against his throat.

  He grabbed my ankle with his skinny fingers, trying to pry my foot off.

  “Hey there.”

  “Ho there.”

  “Hi there.”

  I slid my eyes to the voices and saw the fairy-like faces of Jen’s Angels Three, in an ethereal bubble in which they sometimes appeared.

  “Jenséa is lost,” said Orange.

  “Jenséa suffers,” said Pink.

  “Jenséa dies,” said Yellow.

  “Do you care?” said Orange.

  “Can you care?” said Pink.

  “Will you care?” said Yellow.

  My mind flashed on Jen in a monastery being raped.

  Aruka was aware I’d found Jen’s whereabouts. I saw Aruka in my mind, laughing maniacally in the Portal of Time. “You’d better hurry Juan,” her voice echoed in my ears.” Your Shen relives an old life.”

  I did need to hurry, but it would take only a moment to crush Angel’s Boy’s throat.

  “Again it happens to her,” said Orange.

  “Again it does,” said Pink.

  “Again. Again. And again,” said Yellow.

  Jen’s distress blared inside me, her shame, her hopelessness. Yes, I loved inflicting those emotions, but not on her. My need to protect her overrode my pleasure of killing Angel Boy. I guess killing him now was, as they say, ‘not in the cards.’ Besides, if I waited a bit more, he might put out a call, and I could have him gourmet style. Anyway, I preferred more time to play with him.

  I removed my foot from his neck and pulled him to his feet. As I opened the door magically, I said to him with whirling eyes, “You never entered the room. You turned away at the door, deciding to let Jenséa work out her own problems. Your neck hurts because you tripped and fell coming up the stairs.” I magically backed him out of into the hall, and said, “Go home now.” He’d be in daze for a day or two, believing he had dreamed the scene.

  I closed the door and turned to stare at my slaughter. I turned into the dragonman briefly. White flames flew from my snout igniting the body to ash. I magically changed out the old carpet for new. I wasn’t always aware of the source from whence I stole, but if I saw it in my mind, it would appear just as I envisioned, taken from somewhere. The room now looked clean of foul play. I did not want any possibility of Jen being charged with murder.

  I clothed and cleaned myself with my wizardry: black boots, jeans, tee shirt, and black fingerless gloves. I flew into the sixth realm, across the blinking parallels of time, until I smelled the fragrance of Jen’s gardenia aura. I stopped. Before me was a dark tunnel, almost undetectable in the black air. I flew in. Ahead, in the still dark, a faint white light glowed with candle softness.

  When I reached it, I landed on the compressed air floor. It was cloudy white with veins of bright silver. A red opening led to the year 1210. Before the opening, Jen’s body, adorned in a sheer white gown, lay on a green stone altar. She was absent of her being. It had been projected into the body she’d once inhabited in the year 1210—the body that was now under assault.

  Though the physique she’d abandoned was vacant her spirit, it was appealing, nonetheless. Her fleshy feminine form was visible through the
sheer gown that draped down the sides of the altar. Her long, yellow hair was splayed like sunshine around her head, her daisy-pointed features inert under mother’s spell. Her hands rested on her stomach like Sleeping Beauty. Tazmarks are great for creating romantic illusion. It’s our supreme joy to see humans fall for it. Now it was I falling for it. She looked beautiful—so beautiful. And I would do anything to save her.

  Aruka hovered in the air on the other side of the altar, like a great bird in her deep purple gown with long bell sleeves. Her black hair blew behind her in a pocket of wind she’d created. So dramatic. She dangled my dragon talisman in front of her wicked, ageless face. “She responds to me like I am the mother she lost. She loves me, Juan, maybe more than she loves you.”

  I filled the chain with scorching heat. She dropped it. I cooled the ancient metal and manifested it around Jen’s neck, resting the dragon over her heart. The dragon’s ruby eyes glowed, proving it was still magically endowed.

  I summoned a full magnitude Black Light Shield around Jen’s body and cast a spell that if she were touched, the offender would feel teeth biting their skin. I didn’t need powder and blood to cast such spells. But Jen did, so when she was present, I did it that way to teach her.

  I glared at Aruka with hooded eyes. “You dare challenge me!” I envisioned a stalwart bull ramming her. She fell out of the air and crashed to the white, silver veined, air compressed floor. She rose from her heap, forced a cackle, and then strained words, “Better hurry, Juan. Your Shen’s consciousness is in her 1210 body. Already she’s experienced rape for the eighth time.”

  I clenched my teeth. I’d enjoy the moment when I ripped Aruka into grotesque little pieces.

  She rose and strolled over to me with a gutsy smile, feigning ease, but I knew she felt the pain of the bull’s horn through her stomach. “They have convinced her that rape is due punishment for her crime. She might even be enjoying it.” Aruka grinned, thickening her Black Light Shield, a little too confident.

  I’d kill her grin later. No more time to waste. I went into the red opening, arriving in the year 1210. I was in the third realm, so I went into Pericludies.

  Aruka gibed, “Don’t get lost in there!”

  Fuck her. I’d deal with that grin now. I reached out and grabbed her arm, yanking her into 1210, forcing her into Pericludies with me. She shrieked. I’d caught her off guard. Her startled state created an opening in her mind armor. I moved my intelligence into her mind and spun a web with a sticky substance comprised of all the jumbled impressions of the people’s spirits that I’d inhaled. The web would boggle her thoughts.

  I stepped back and extended the web around her until she was immobilized. The look of shock was frozen on her face; bulbous eyes and full moon mouth creating a perfect hole. I wanted to drive a golf ball in it. Hell yeah, great look for ma.

  “Don’t mess with me,” I said. “You are no match.” And I didn’t think she was, not any more. I’d gotten her too easily.

  I left her there in third realm Pericludies invisible to the mortal eye.

  I went into the sixth realm and flew to Monastère de Ratchet, the monastery that harbored the woman who now contained Jen’s spirit. Each personality from one’s past lives has its own spirit. All those spirits together create a soul. Thus, every life one ever lives, combined, is the sum of their whole—or soul. Any part of the soul is felt by all the other parts.

  I landed in a colorful rock garden in third realm Pericludies. Brown robed monks walked through grey stone archways in prayerful trance.

  I remembered Jen describing this particular life in a regression I had once forced upon her. She was sent here to the Monastery of Redemption to be punished for promoting religious ideals that differed from the church. One ideal she preached was that a woman could deny her husband or lord sexual favor, if he showed her disrespect. Such a view in the eyes of the church was devil incited, for without sex, the species could not propagate. It was the woman’s duty to submit to husband or lord, no matter what the circumstance. Her sentence was to have the devil expelled from her by mass rape to be performed by the monks who did God’s work.

  The consciousness of Jen would experience this reoccurrence as a nightmare. But her 1210 consciousness would feel everything as if it were happening for the first time. That is the thing with time travel—when going from the present back, you can watch who you were even from inside that body of the past.

  I manifested in an empty corridor. I decided to dress like one of the Three Musketeers, Jen’s favorite. I thought the costume on me. White billowy shirt, tight black pants tucked into thigh high boots, and ornate rapier by my side. I made my long, straight hair curly and my face to look more French, mustache and tight knit beard included. I would play out this scene as one of Jen’s fantasies, for I knew them all.

  I manifested a brown monks robe over my costume and drew the hood around my face, swallowing it in shadow. I trekked down the empty grey hall, engulfed in the echo of my footsteps. Jen’s gardenia scent became stronger. I could find her always, no matter what realm or time she was in.

  I stopped in front of a room. This was it. I smelled many humans gathered in this room, hot with animal energy, but not as animalistic as mine. I was ready for fun and games.

  I burst open the wood-planked door, charging into the stark, grey stone cell. A naked woman lay with her back against the cold floor, straddled by a robed monk. Three robed monks sat on the sideline, libidinous faces not yet registering my entry. And when they did, they gasped silently.

  The monk on top of her twisted his head to view me. In Old French, he said, “Leave, it is not your turn.”

  I whisked my robe over my head, drew my sword, and touched the point to his back—oh so muskateerish of me. I paused for a moment trying to recollect the Old French language. It had been some time since I’d used it. Finally, it came, flowing in with more ease than contemporary French. “You leave. It is my turn.”

  The monk rose. His robes fell over his erect maleness as he stood. I walked past him toward the others, shrewd eyes dominating the situation. He backed himself under the doorway, never breaking eye contact.

  “Depart,” I said to the others pointing my sword toward them. They rose and edged past me cautiously, joining the first monk. The four of them stood bunched in the doorway.

  The woman sat up, knees hugged to her chest. Her shy eyes surveyed me. Shame reddened her face. Her features were different than Jen’s, but reminiscent of the same angelic sweetness. She did not recognize me. She had her own consciousness, not Jen’s. Jen was pushed away somewhere, so this personality could exist. But her eyes I could tell, found me pleasing.

  “You must go away,” said the monk who had been on top of her. “She is being punished.”

  I turned to him. “Yes” I said, “for no crime.”

  “She preached blasphemy.”

  I said, “She preached self-respect.”

  “She would have all women deny men that which procreates!”

  “No,” I said, “she believes procreation should be perfumed with love and honor.”

  The monk’s face reddened. “Man should not bow to woman. It is unnatural. Such action is the devil’s joke! Ay, surely you are of the devil!”

  They were more of my world than the one who made the crucifix famous, whether they knew it or not. I pointed my sword at the unholy cluster, rather enjoying Old French, old flavor challenges, and old-fashioned heroic recreation. “Depart! Sound your alarm. Dare to stop me from removing her from this sinful place. I welcome the fight!”

  They left quickly. No doubt they’d return just as fast with back up and weapons. These were the fighting kind of monks. You know, the kind that killed for God.

  The woman shrunk back from me, scooting into a corner, covering her nakedness with knees and arms.

  Her dark eyes widened as I approached her. Her parched lips quivered speaking Old French meekly, “Are you the devil, come to take me?”

  I squatted
before her trying to decide how to gain her trust in sixty seconds. I felt her name vibration . . . Maréa.

  “Maréa,” I said.

  “You know my name.”

  “Yes. I know everything about you.”

  “Then you know I was letting them punish me. They were right. I was wrong to defy the men who protect us from the woes of the outer world. I was wrong. I sinned. Women mustn’t rebel against men. It is no different than rebelling against God, for God was created in man’s image. Were you the devil that drove me to sin? Have you come to take me to hell?”

  “You believe them, because it is better than admitting you were raped.”

  “No,” her eyes stretched. “I deserved the punishment! I still do!”

  “You do not deserve punishment. Your rebellion was justified. God was not created in mans’ image, and it’s time women found their power. They give it up all too easily.”

  I magically cleaned her with what I call a mind bath, which was more sanitary than soap and water.

  “I feel different,” she said, “like I’ve just come out of a spring rain.”

  Over her body, I manifested a long white silk gown and white slippers upon her feet.

  “Ay, why have you given me white? I am nothing.”

  “You are everything,” I said, “—and more.”

  “Who are you to tell me this? You know magic. You must be the devil come to seduce me . . . to take me to hell.”

  “I’m not taking you to hell. You’ve been in it. And the devils have been all around you. And you only suffer this consequence because you have lost belief in yourself. Their lust appeased upon your body won’t redeem you, as they have claimed.”