“No” she cried, “surely they have been trying to spare me. I cannot bear the truth you suggest. For that truth, I should suffer for all eternity!” Her hands flew over her face, muffling her deep-throated sobs.
A band of monks had assembled at the door behind the one who seemed in authority.
I stood and faced them, pointing my sword. “Come and get me.”
The woman sprung up and stood behind me, her hands light on my back.
“I am Father Dominique. Let us fight in the yard. If you can defeat our eight best swordsmen, we will grant you the woman.”
Now this would be entertaining. I, of course, could take us into the sixth realm and disappear before their eyes. However, I loved to fight. I wanted the distraction, needed it, after all I’d been through. I was a master swordsman in my day, and I rather missed the art.
We assembled in a dirt clearing, surrounded by olive trees, sporadic gardens, and wild grasses. I insisted that the woman be set apart from the audience of monks who had gathered around us. I placed her far back on a stone bench under an olive tree where I’d summoned scores of birds to flock and sing for her. So they were ravens. I was aiming for bluebirds, but third realm creatures of such vibration rarely responded to me. Oh well, a bird’s, a bird.
I fought eight men, one by one, defeating each in a fight to the death. I could feel Maréa enjoy the clash of swords, and a thrill in her heart that a man would fight, not just for her life, but for her words, for her honor, for her. However, her tender heart could not bear the piercing of skin, nor the sight of spilled blood. In those moments, she hid her face in her dark French hands.
The onlookers despised me, but they had to allow my departure. Even these monks had some honor not twisted to suit themselves. I approached Maréa and reached down. She took my hand, mesmerized by my artistic display of chivalry.
I guided her to stand, and oh so gallantly scooped her in my arms, Superman style. We vanished before the monks’ bratty eyes. Let them believe that I was the Devil. Hell, I was. I magically made Maréa’s eyes close by making her feel drowsy. My skeletal-like features and vampire canines would not serve her so well just now.
We flew to the red opening that led out of 1210. On a whim, I clairvoyantly peeked in on mother. She was still frozen in third realm Pericludies. I decided to leave her there to halt her meddling. If a grand showdown occurred, I might release her unprepared and laugh at her folly. Or, I might make her miss it altogether and break the shred of heart that still thrived in her.
I tried to move us through the opening but an invisible wall blocked us. What interference was this? Father? I hoped not. I wasn’t prepared for him—yet. Perhaps this was part of his ploy. I’d fall into it for a while. I wanted to, especially if it involved this pre—Jen, woman. Perhaps I could help Jen break her martyr ways by influencing who she had been.
I landed us in the third realm, in a field of grass surrounded by green rolling hills. I set Maréa on her feet, and willed her eyes to open by making her feel a burst of energy.
She sunk down to my toes, crouching in shame. She lifted her head to me and cried in Old French, “You have spared me from a dreadful fate, but I am still sullied with disgrace, for I have lain with men void of love. I have labored hard to be good and perfect. I have tried hard to never, never sin. But I was tricked into sinning. It’s hopeless. I am a sinner. I am bad.”
“Ah,” I said, in her language, “the infamous call to snuff the light.”
“What?”
“Your roots of self-torture are tenacious and deep, and if you believe you deserve suffering, then suffer you shall.”
Her perplexed face shone pure, too pure. No wonder Jen’s essence never lived in a body long, or had even the smallest chance to emerge into her full power in times past. Religion and politics had maimed her since the moment of her earth arrival. I could see her first entry in my psychic mind. Her infant body is drowned like a rat, solely because she is female. Same old pattern, again and again and again. She had learned to cling hard to religion, searching for the feeling she’d known in her Angel world.
I knelt and drew her face up with my insensate gloved hand. “God forgives all.”
“You are an Angel then?”
I nodded.
Her liquid eyes lingered on my face.
There was no God, as many imagined, as a man in the sky. I despised this manner of talk, but if I could cure her will to suffer, perhaps Jen would change. She was a part of Jen. Maybe I had to change her part by part, from the past, from her beginnings.
I said, “I have come to redeem your worth.”
“You grace me with too much. I am not worth anything! I healed the people with my hands, and that was for God to decide whom to heal, not me. I preached that women should not let men ravage them as if there were animals. I tried to teach them about love. True Love! Divine Love! But that is for the Holy Man to teach—not me.”
I cupped her cheeks in my hands. Her dark curls blew over my fingers. Her chocolate brown eyes gleamed innocence. I fought not to kiss her.
And then I had an idea. Perhaps I could attain what I wanted from her after all. I forced myself to sit back on the meadow grass, resting elbows casually on raised knees. “Humans have never been ready to learn. Send your love into me. Grant me your unconditional love, then you will be purified.” A little concerned she might burn me, I added, “Remember, unconditional love. Divine Love is for Heaven.”
A small brown lizard scurried over her slipper. She jumped a little, watching for its next move. “Is there a difference?” She turned her love-lactating koala bear eyes back to me, awaiting an answer.
So sweet. So . . . sweet. I wanted to pounce on her. Dis-ci-pline.
I said, “Unconditional Love is Divine Love personalized. Divine love, though unconditional—is more. It has no boundary, or target. It draws all into its source whether they want it or not, and sends all into it, so that their individuality is blurred into the whole. That is why it is meant for Heaven.”
“That’s the love I know,” she said. “Few desire it. I dislike this physical life.”
“I’ll take you from it. But first,” my eyes whirled, “grant me unconditional love.”
I felt her falling into my mesmerizing gaze.
In her mesmerized state she asked, “Why do you, an Angel, require this unconditional, personalized love?”
A nice lie flew out of my mouth. “Receiving unconditional love from a human will initiate me into a higher level. Do I not deserve this for helping you?”
Her dark-skinned face nodded, but I saw into her. I viewed the same ancient spirals of enchanting rainbow light that I’d always seen in Jen. Only the shells, the bodies, were different. I could discard the shells; it was the spirit I wanted. I wanted to seize it through copulation. But no, she must give of it, without me taking it from her. I had to know it that way. And she had to know something of me, or the love wouldn’t be real. “Do you know what brand of Angel I am?”
She questioned, “An avenging Angel?”
“You understand then that I have created acts of destruction, and punished those who called for it.”
My words seemed to break her trance. She stopped breathing and then all at once breathed quickly, “Are you the fallen Angel, Lucifer!”
“Could Lucifer take you to Heaven?”
She glared at me intensely. “But what if you have no intention of taking me to Heaven?”
“Why would I bother to save you if I wanted to bring hell upon you. You were in it, were you not?”
She lowered her head sadly. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
A tear streaked her cheek. I kissed the corner of her eye where the tear had begun, enjoying the salt. “Making love is not rape.” I had taught Jen the same thing. Having been raped twice, she didn’t know it wasn’t the same. Now she knew. I would teach this to Maréa as well. I pulled her gown down softly, exposing one shoulder. I kissed her dark skin.
Her full lips whi
spered words that seemed to lick at me. “Do you want me to make love with you, or give you unconditional love?”
“Both.” I trailed my fingers along her gown grazing the side of her breast.
She said shyly, “Must I give both? I hurt,” she blushed, “from the others.”
“You will feel only pleasure, Maréa. I will erase your pain.”
Hesitation crossed her eyes.
I sent my red energy into her, and brushed my fingers over her nipple. “Don’t you want to?”
Her nipples hardened and her body trembled with sexual tension, evidence of her attraction to me, and her reception of my libidinal fire. She sighed longingly, painfully, torn inside. “You are an Angel, sacred, no?”
“It’s no sin to love an Angel.”
“Afterward,” her voice rasped, “will you take me to Heaven?”
“Ah hah,” I said, burying my face in her breast. Was I ever full of shit.
“Take me to Heaven first. I will love you there, however God wishes.”
“All right,” I replied. I could take her into the fifth realm, not as heavenly as the seventh, but fairy tale atmosphere would do.
Suddenly, I sensed something amiss. I half expected the emergence of Diego, but the only Tazmark I sensed was mother. If Diego was involved, he did not present immediate danger.
I heard pounding hooves approaching with my keen ears.
I rose, drawing the softly panting Maréa up with me. We were going to have company, not yet visible.
“What is it?” Maréa asked, “What’s wrong?”
Over a distant hill, rose a troop of mounted men in chain mail. Their deep blue tunics flaunted a red and brown falcon crest. I watched them come, while smiling faintly with hooded eyes.
Maréa clung to my arm. “Oh, I’ve engaged you with such trouble.”
“Nonsense,” I said, “they have come to learn a lesson.”
The nine knights enlarged as they neared, stopping abruptly; yanking reins that stretched equine lips under bulging horse eyes. They drew their snorting, huffing equus calibus around us in a half circle.
Maréa clamped my arm more tightly. If I were a human, it would have hurt. She murmured, “Thank you for attempting to aid me.”
I glanced at her with cold strong eyes. “Fear not.”
She pressed her flesh close to mine, slipping behind my back. The pressure of her body’s contour sparked a pang in mine.
One knight advanced on his horse, helmet glistening in the sun. “We come for the woman by order of Lord Dupont.”
I said, “I have won her fairly from the monks.”
“But not from our Lord. He wants her disciplined.”
“Then I shall fight you.”
“So be it, but you must fight us all at once.” He grinned, blood lust in his eyes.
“I would pleasure in nothing more than to fight you all at once.”
Maréa cried out to the knights, “No wait. I’ll depart with you. Don’t harm him!”
Ironic. I reveal the truth about me, wrapped in an Angel package, and she volunteers death to save me. Yet, the same truth, viewing me as the Devil, would render me void of her support. Either way, I would still defend her, though not a Tazmarkian virtue. “She’s my property now.” I said, “It’s not her decision to make.”
“It’s all right,” Maréa cried to me, “I’ll go with them.”
I rendered her silent and created a gentle force that edged her back behind a giant sycamore tree.
I drew my sword, and took a fencing stance. “En guarde.”
The knights dismounted with puffy chests and laughed at me, their depraved faces molded to visions of my mutilation.
“Excellent,” said the leader. “Nine against one. You are a fool.”
“No. I am the doom of fools,” I said eager for the fight to commence.
The leader’s mouth practically slathered with saliva. “We are going to slice you into pieces.”
My body charged with pleasing adrenaline as the men closed in with flashing swords. I met each parry, thrust, and slash with my rapier. None could touch me, for I filled every space between them with speed and dexterity unknown in humans. Rapiers are not great for severing, but I didn’t want to spoil the Musketeer illusion, so I would stab them to death. Not as sweet as dismembered limbs, but tangy as far as puncturing goes.
In minutes, all too few, not enough for me, they were strewn upon the grass, lifeless, crimson fluid oozing.
I looked to Maréa, peeking out from behind the tree. She was staring at me with open hands over her mouth in a pose of shock and surprise.
I sauntered her way, still heightened by the adrenaline rush with sex and unconditional love on my mind. When I reached her, I clasped her wrists gently, and pulled them down from her mouth. I guided her back gently against the giant sycamore tree, leaned in, and kissed her softly, still holding her wrists. I drew my head back, “See, all is well.”
She said, “You fight not as a man. I do believe you are an Angel, an avenging Angel indeed.”
I transformed my grip on her wrists to a tender handhold. “I am an avenging Angel, and I have avenged you. Now I ask you for your love—your unconditional love. Remember, not Divine Love. Divine is for Heaven—not earth.”
She nodded. “Yes, I will give this to you.”
I took my hands to her cheeks, and my mouth to her lips, heightening the kiss, moment by moment until my tongue probed her mouth. Then I withdrew to assess the expression on her face.
Her eyes looked wet with joy. “You kiss like poets write. You are the first to kiss me. It is more beautiful than I’d ever imagined.”
She hugged me, almost gratefully, and I her, the same, with her head in the nook of my shoulder. I was also the first to kiss Jen. Perhaps I’d find her in each of her lives and become her true love, over and over again. It wasn’t cheating exactly, and it was an exciting thought. If I championed her other selves in each of her previous lives, perhaps I could uproot that ugly religious weed that ever tried to strangle her.
Enough hugging. I cupped her shoulders, parted us slightly, and kissed her more deeply from my heart. She seemed to like it so. I thought about the sealed opening out of 1210 again, and the why’s and who’s of that maneuver. Helping Maréa would change Jen perhaps to father’s favor. Jen would become a worthy opponent for him if she came to full power. He might even plan to turn her against me, counting on the fact that I wouldn’t kill her. Tazmarks elated in game playing, but they didn’t understand love. Except for me. To a certain extent anyway. Jen might fight Diego, but she would never fight me.
Maréa broke the kiss gently, panting heavily. “In Heaven . . . I’ll grant your wish when we get to Heaven.”
“All right.” I swept in her my arms romance style, willing her eyes closed, and flew us into the fifth realm. I set her white slippered feet on bright green grass. We stood in a thin, pearly rainbow mist. I was hoping no little unicorns or fairies would fly by.
“We are in Heaven,” I said, determined to make love with her, right now, in good grace—with her consent.
She looked about. “Is it true, we are in Heaven?”
“It is true.” I filled her with my spirit fire. Her hidden passions ignited, and I felt my Jen within her.
Maréa wrapped herself around me, reminding me of Jen. At once, I realized how important it was to make Jen understand me. Perhaps she would be freed if she understood that whether she suffered or not, the ills of mankind would continue because that realm was mine to deal with, not hers.
Maréa’s body rubbed up against mine. I slipped off her gown and buried my face in her neck, contemplating how history would change if I boosted her past selves beyond their stunted state.
Magically removing my clothes, naked in the fifth realm air, I made love to Maréa-Jen, and she-they, returned it. But it wasn’t unconditional. No, still I could feel the conditions. But the sex was good, as always it is with a Shen. No matter what life she was in, she was st
ill a Shen.
I raised my upper body to view Maréa underneath me. Her face was sweet and sated. She had fallen asleep. She was lovely, as Maréa, as Jen, and all whom she ever was—too chaste for earth. And yet, she could not escape its hold until she survived it. And she could never do that without me. I knew this now, as certainly as I’d known anything.
How I knew, or why I knew, didn’t matter. She was my project, my greatest undertaking, and perhaps the only human to ever receive benevolence from me. And what I needed from her, she needed me to need from her. How was it that a Shen required my help? How was it that I, Prince of Darkness, required hers? Even with my 240 IQ, I couldn’t figure it out.
My breathing became weighted. I needed to leave the fifth realm. I didn’t wish to return Maréa to the third realm and spoil the moment by surrounding her with the scattered corpses of the men I’d slain. It was time we left 1210 anyway. I would find a way past the block.
I magically clothed myself in my standard black tee shirt, jeans, fingerless gloves, and boots; and I ditched the French look, appearing my regular self again.
I lifted the sleeping naked Maréa and flew her into the sixth realm. The barrier over the red opening was gone. Someone was pleased. Father probably—and he was no doubt smiling, believing somehow that I’d fallen into his trap.
I took Maréa’s body through the red portal, leaving 1210 behind. Her physical density lightened to an almost incorporeal state. I laid her ghost-like essence inside the body of my sleeping Jen. Maréa, an aspect of Jen had been rescued from that 1210 past, once and for all. And then like Prince Charming, though charming I was not, I kissed my Sleeping Beauty.
Chapter Nine
Jen stirred, inhaling a slow deep breath. Then she mumbled, “Are we still in heaven?”
I stood there, waiting for her to awaken fully.
Her eyes fluttered open, sparkling blue. She was back. She sat up abruptly as if startled, “johnny?” she looked to the right, not seeing me.
“johnny?” She turned her head the other way and viewed me. She sighed with relief. “Where are we?” she said looking around, “and,” she surveyed her gown, running her hand over the sheer fabric, “why am I dressed like this?”
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