by A. L. Mengel
He looked up at Madame.
She had been sitting in the final pew, her dress spilling to the floor. Her age and heft were profound, but she carried it well. Her hair, tied back in a bun, was grey and spindly. She turned to face him with grey, dead eyes. “Yes, my son. Yes. It is most certainly time. It is time for you to find someone. He has deserted you, so you must create your own.”
Darius sat back and shifted in the pew. “And it must be a son?”
She shook her head. “No, my child, it needn’t be a son. It can be a daughter. But you must realize…Claret will want some longevity in her ancestry. You cannot simply become an immortal and never carry the line.”
Darius nodded. “I understand that. So how do I find a son?”
She raised her head and looked towards the altar. “You should have been tutored this from your maker. I can’t tell you that.”
Darius lowered his eyes. “I have not seen him since I woke. It has been so long now.”
“So then, you need to discover that for yourself. You cannot be what you are without bearing a son or daughter. Preferably a son, but at least a daughter.”
He waved his arm towards her face. “Yes, yes, I understand.”
And then the doors rattled in their frames, the heavy, wooden doors at the entrance to the Cathedral.
Chains rattled.
There was muffled shouting outside. Madame looked over at Darius with wide eyes, covered with a hazy film. “Are they looking for you?”
She rose from the pew, and struggled to enter the aisle.
The doors rattled again, and more shouting.
And as she made her way into the aisle in the center of the Cathedral, the front doors slammed open, and an angry mob stormed into the atrium, armed with flaming torches and swords.
“Where is the one they call Darius?”
Darius stood fast.
“They are looking for you? Darius, go!”
He looked to the left, and then to the right, and then to the center towards the atrium. He saw the bright orange flames from the torches through the partially open doors. And then he turned, and ran deeper into the Cathedral.
The woman called out to him as he ran. “The only way out is farther in, Darius! You know when you go deeper inside, Darius, they will come! They will come! Go beyond the vestment room, go down the earthen stairs, and go beyond. The worms will be there, Darius. They will be there but you must defeat them. For if you don’t, they will follow you. They will follow you through time and eternity until you are able to stop them.”
Madame stood and turned as the doors crashed open. She looked towards the mob with unseeing eyes.
A large group held flaming torches and swords. They stormed inside the atrium and into the worshipping area, grabbing Madame by the arms, as they drew the torches down to her dress igniting her with flames. “Destroy them, Darius, destroy them! They must not survive!”
Madame did not scream as she burned into ashes in the middle of the cathedral; Darius ran towards the front, towards the altar and statues, trying heavy, wooden doors to find the vestment room. The mob closed in on Darius as he found a small room off towards the side of the worshipping area. He threw open the closet doors, and shoved the hanging cassocks to the side.
There was another door. He could tell from the handle towards the center; it was not like any door he had ever seen before. It was flush with the wall, or so it seemed. He chose to turn the handle, and gave the giant, rounded plate in the center a turn clockwise. The door rumbled and slid inside the wall, revealing a stairway down into the bowels of the earth.
And as he ventured in, he heard, in the distance, as the flames crackled and Madame’s flesh boiled, her insistence, and she reminded him once more before she perished. “The only way out is farther in!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Doug looked around in an attempt to gather his surroundings. And then, after a few minutes, he saw that he was in the same stone room that he had escaped to earlier. He must have fallen asleep on one of the wooden benches at the dining tables. He sought some explanation for Sheldon’s letter. And it deemed especially important since he was underneath the offices for The Astral.
He walked towards the far end of the room where there was an opening to a hallway. And when he got there, he was met by a very tall man, a man who seemed somewhat brushed in his appearance, somewhat soft, but certainly had wings. “Are you seeking to pass here?”
Doug nodded. “I think so. I am not sure. I came down here rather abruptly.”
“Come with me please.”
The winged man led him down a stone hallway, lined with doors. Each of the doors appeared to be metal, and closed. There was no activity, just the two of them. He led them down an adjoining hallway to a room with a large conference table in the center. There was a round man sitting at the far end of the table. There were papers and file folders spread in front of him. The man mopped his brow with a handkerchief. The man looked up at Doug and paused. He stroked his beard, took off his glasses and lay them on the desk. “So you understand what you have to do?”
Doug took a deep breath. “What I have to do?”
The man leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Doug, a certain Sheldon Wilkes should have written you a letter. This is the whole reason why you are down here.”
Doug nodded.
“Good. Then I will explain to you why you must burn down Antoine’s estate, and why you must fly to Germany as soon as possible.”
The man rose from behind the desk. He was much taller than Doug would have assumed.
“We are part of The Astral,” the man said, as he approached Doug. He gently touched his arm and guided him to a chair that was next to the large conference table. “We have always been a bit underground, as you can see. But I need to explain to you something. What you saw up there with the bodies happens every night. It happens when the sun sets and the darkness takes over. The city just dies. And it happens because there is so much evil here, so much pain and sadness. The white worms come each night to cleanse the city so it can experience another day.”
Doug looked up at the man, who was still stroking his long, white beard. “So where do I fall into all of this?”
“I am getting there,” the man said. “We exist in an alternate dimension. What you see outside in not what those in reality experience.”
Doug stopped. “What do you mean?”
“This not reality for everyone, Doug, but it is your reality.”
Doug looked at the tall man, and several other men who sat around the conference table. He leaned forward and pressed them for an answer. “How did this happen?”
One of the other men spoke as the tall man returned to the chair at his desk. “Your involvement with the occult has brought you to us. We know that you are not ill-intentioned, and that’s why you are here. Sheldon was our Director. We operate under the guise of The Astral, and now that he is gone, we need a new leader.”
*~*~*
Martin stood against the wall, in the hallway of Claire’s apartment. Deputy Rickson was behind him, aiming his gun towards the living room. Detective Jensen looked over to Deputy and waved his arm. “Don’t shoot!” he whispered. Both men look through the archway to the living room, both fixated on the black bodybag lying in the middle of the carpet.
“What the heck is happening in there?” Deputy asked.
Martin glared at Deputy Rickson. “How the heck would I know?” He back up a few steps, very slowly and cautiously. He motioned for the Deputy to follow him to the back bedroom. He sat on the bed slowly, and reached for his breast pocket. “Damn it.”
“Martin…what do we do about that in there?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.
Claire’s body was placed on a gurney and wheeled away, lifted into a large, black van with the words “Coroner” on the side in white lettering. It was time to take her to the morgue.
Darius had stood at the side of the street in front of 657 Bricke
ll.
He dared not venture to the seventeenth floor to get a closer look at Claire’s body; he kept his distance, sitting at a small café table on the opposite side of Brickell Avenue. He looked upwards towards her condo building, cupped his hands over his forehead, and saw a tall rectangular silhouette in the morning sun.
The Coroner’s van was parked across the street in the shadow of 657 Brickell. One he saw the EMT’s emerge from the glass atrium, he caught a quick glimpse of the gurney being wheeled out. Darius waved for the check and decided it was best to leave before they brought Claire’s body to the van. Their last altercation was not a happy one.
It was best time to leave.
Time to find Delia.
*~*~*
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was a rumble of thunder in the distance, followed by a light breeze.
Darius waited patiently on the wrap around porch as he listened for Delia’s footsteps. He scanned the garden. It was very well tended, with a brilliant green manicured lawn. After what seemed like an eternity, she opened the door and he stepped into her condominium.
She ushered him through a foyer which was very elegant and very southern. Thick, plush rugs covered a wooden floor which indicated the building’s age. There was a round mahogany table in the center with a crystal decanter in the center.
On the walls hung several old oil paintings, mirrors, candelabra sconces and Victorian style wall outlets, all framed by soaring china cabinets. They went into the side parlor, where Delia had been sitting and having some tea.
Darius spoke first. “I was driving today, down Anastasia…you know, next to the Cemetery?”
Delia nodded, returning to the sofa and stirring her steaming cup of tea. Her spoon clanked on the china with each revolution.
Darius poured himself a cup of tea from a white porcelain tea set so dainty that it seemed like it could have been from a dollhouse. He poured some cream in his cup and continued. “I was driving next to Woodlawn. And I almost crashed my car when I saw what I saw.”
“What did you see?” Delia asked, leaning slightly forward. Despite her wrinkled and grey appearance, her face still projected a look of earnest; her eyes were bright and wide and young.
“What I saw reminded me of what I am facing in this reality,” Darius said, and leaned back into the elegant cabernet sofa. He picked up a matching pillow and held it against his chest. “I am going to die, Delia.”
Delia set down her cup of tea and looked over at Darius.
“I understand you feeling that when you drive past a cemetery, Darius. I do. But you can beat this. You can achieve what you lost.”
A single tear streamed down Darius’ face, cascading down from his tear duct down a check with fresh and new wrinkle lines that he did not have the last time he spoke with Delia. Delia sat on the couch next to him, pulling a tissue from the wooden side table next to the sofa with a matching cabernet colored lamp. “What did you see?” she asked, visibly concerned.
“Death,” he said, leaning onto Delia’s shoulder as she dabbed his cheek with the wadded up tissue. He closed his eyes. “I can picture it now. I was driving and the sun was blinding me. And I had driven past Woodlawn every day – every time I went to see Claire I would pass that place. And it pained me to pass there knowing that I would someday be lying there.”
“Let me get you a drink. A real one.”
Delia slowly made her way over to a small bar that was at the opposite end of her parlor; she began mixing a martini when Darius continued. “I stopped at an intersection, and turned my head, and there it was.”
“What was it?”
“An open grave, Delia. I don’t know…maybe the service had just ended, I don’t know. There were chairs set up in neat little rows, but all of the chairs were empty. They were sitting in the shade under a small white canopy – just a few chairs. But what was most striking – what stood out to me the most - was the giant stone grave liner sitting right there in front of the neat little chairs. And I sat there, holding up traffic until the car horns behind me snapped me out of it.”
“You’ll see an open grave from time to time, Darius. Especially when you drive past a cemetery every day.”
“I know,” Darius said. “But what is bothering me so much, is what I am seeing. Every day. Death.”
“Do you think it’s Claret? Could she be sending you these visions?” she asked, handing him a freshly made martini in a frosted and oversized martini glass. He gratefully took it and gulped it down.
“It could be her. But it doesn’t matter at this point if it was her or not. It could be the Baal. They took my livelihood away.”
“What the Baal took away simply was the immortality, the gift that you were given.”
“I am being called to death, I can tell. I know it. Too much and too often, I pass something just like I passed at Woodlawn.” Darius sat up, his martini now finished, sat his glass on the coffee table with a slight clank, and pleaded with open wide eyes to Delia. “I see this every day!”
He got up and started pacing around the room. “Death is all around me, Delia. I don’t know if it’s Claret, or if it’s Asmodai or whoever it is…but someone is trying to send me a sign. I see these visions every single day! The vision I saw today almost crashed my car. I don’t even know if it was real. When I snapped out of it, after the horns were honking, I shook my head a bit, trying to shake the vision off, and pressed the gas. I was in the left lane, and I wanted to pull over. I was first, right in front of the intersection, and started to move to the right lane, and a truck almost smashed into me! Is someone trying to kill me?”
Delia took another sip of her tea. “I don’t think that is the case, my friend.”
Darius was not convinced.
“Right,” he said, still pacing.
“That drink seems to have gotten you more worked up. Do you need another? Or was making you the martini a bad idea?”
“Delia stop assuming that my demeanor is brought on by the simplicity of alcohol!”
Delia glared back at him. “Choose your words carefully.”
“I just feel that maybe I am meant to die.”
Delia shook her head, and walked over the window by which Darius was pacing back and forth. “I honestly don’t think that’s the case. That close call could have happened to anyone. It happens these days on the road all the time – people lose focus, stop paying attention and then before they knew that they got smacked in a head on collision they are planted in the ground and pushing up daisies.”
“And the visions?”
“Well,” she said, “you very well could have just been driving past Woodlawn at the precise time when they were getting ready to bury a coffin.” Delia shrugged her shoulders. “It happens,” she said.
Darius closed his eyes and sighed, pulling away from Delia. “You,” he said, “were the last one I would think to question what I am saying. Right now, you are acting as if you are the voice of reason, when I am here about to die and you have regained your gift!” Darius went over to the bar, and started mixing.
“The booze will not help,” Delia said. “But do as you wish.”
Darius ignored her. As he was mixing, he continued. “Have you ever thought that, maybe, I was willed to be there at that time?”
Delia paused and considered the thought.
Darius continued. “Sure, it may not have been a vision conjured up in my mind. But I was there right at that time, and I looked over from sitting there in the car and I could have looked over at any other time and saw a restaurant, or a tall truck blocking the sun, or a Wal-Mart. But I saw that. It’s like I was being spoken to.”
Delia sat back down on the sofa. “I can see your point.”
“And I have been seeing things like this for some time now.”
“So what if it is Claret?”
“You want my honest opinion? I don’t think its Claret at all. She has no reason to follow me. She followed Antoine, and she had reason to. He took the
Cup from her, and she wanted it back. She got her justice. Antoine is in the ground, dead, buried. I know because I buried him.”
“I know.”
Darius took another sip of a fresh martini. “But it seems like this is my punishment. You are the only one I can relate to, Delia. My therapist thinks I am just a crazy person.”
“Right now you are human,” Delia reminded him. “And you are feeling human emotions. Do you remember the days before you transformed? When you were still a young man?”
Darius did, and he did remember.
He remembered the days that seemed so far away in the distance, so long ago that they might be lost forever. But now, here he was, forced to revisit his past.
“Our past will always be there,” Delia said. “It’s what defines us. You can run from it all you like, but no matter how far or fast you travel, it will always be a part of you.”
He held up his hand to silence her. “I know, I know.” He brushed her off. But the thoughts burned heavily in his mind, the picture he saw, of the coffin, waiting, as if calling to him. A steadfast memory with no reason, no logic. Just a damning reality. And then, as Delia walked over to the kitchen to clean the dirty teacups, Darius lay back on the sofa and closed his eyes.
And thought again of the vision.
He remembered stopping. And he was able to pull his car over, despite the screeching of the breaks and despite the angry fisted driver shouting obscenities; he managed to pull to the side of the road, and stop, and close his eyes, and listen to the hum of the traffic passing to his left.
There had been a knock on the passenger side window.
Darius opened his eyes and turned his head to the sound. But there was no one there.
The sun was starting to fade and the reddish orange hues took over the evening palette, lending a quiet and muted aura of the start of the evening. The traffic seemed to quiet and there was nothing but quiet, serenity, and peacefulness.
He opened the door and stood up and stretched, trying to clear his head and his thoughts, looking up at the setting sun which looked like a hot red dot oozing pink and crimson wings. But he couldn’t get the knock out of his mind.
