The Mark of Chaos

by Susan D. Kalior

  He took a drag off his cigarette. Out of his mouth, came a cloud of white. In it, I saw white fire and black smoke smothering flesh. I smelled burning skin. “Accept me,” he declared. Then he reiterated more gently, “Accept me.”

  The smoke mesmerized me.

  He stared into me deeply while sucking in a long dose of smoke from his cigarette. The end glowed brilliant orange.

  The smoke came out of his mouth in curls of white and gray. I saw a vision of his Dragon face, blood dripping from the mouth.

  “Accept me,” he said again.

  I suddenly felt horrible. “No!” I cried, throwing my hands over my face. I was angry, angry that I was being asked to accept his monstrous acts, even if they did have place and purpose in the greater scheme of things. My anger turned to rage. Precious rage. I’d known it little and needed it much. “Accept you?” I clenched my fists and exploded. “Accept you. Shall I give you my silk scarf for luck when you go out on your nightly hunt? Shall I applaud you for ripping human bodies limb to limb? Shall I join in the slaughter and stuff guts in my mouth?”

  I’d never felt so vicious. My entire body vibrated. It felt good to be mad. I suddenly realized that rage deflected pain. No wonder our world had gone mad. The pain had become unbearable.

  “I like this side of you,” he said calmly. Then his eyelids flared slightly. “It is fire. It is me. I am pleased.” He lowered his cigarette to the bedside beyond my sight. When he raised his hand, the cigarette was gone.

  “Pleased!” I huffed, “Does nothing unravel you?”

  “Your lack of trust,” he said dryly.

  He’d taken the sizzle right out of me. I felt bad because I didn’t trust him. And he had tried so hard to make it so. My fists opened and fell limp by my sides.

  I said, “johnny, have you forgotten what you are?”

  He replied, “My commitment to you has never been broken, not even when you broke your commitment to me. Your trust in me is necessary for your own unfolding. If you cannot do that, you will not access your many powers. In that, it is I who must trust you, for your powers endanger me.”

  “But you like danger.”

  His eyes whirled. “Then if I’m always in danger, how could my interest wane?”

  “Because, regarding me, you know that it isn’t in me to attack you, and you also know that even if I did, you would win. I fear the challenge for you is to get my trust, and once you have it, I won’t matter anymore.”

  “You have trusted me at times; it was that trust that saved you.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. “You always talk me in circles.”

  He bowled me over gently, landing my back on the bed. My feet landed by the headboard. His body landed on me, cradling my head with his forearms. “I do talk you in circles,” he said, “to keep you from walking straight away.”

  “I don’t want to walk away, johnny. Sometimes, I must.”

  The room smelled of roses and his breath of peppermint. I inhaled the cool aroma as he spoke. “I want to explain to you the importance of deepening your commitment. You have sparked an array of new emotions in me, making me more human. I am out here on a limb, waiting for your unconditional love to take us both into a new kind of reality. If your unconditional love is not forthcoming, I must retreat and move back toward my old world. It is unnatural for me to be in limbo. I must go one way or the other.”

  “If you retreated, would you still protect me?”

  “I would still protect you. But you truly would never see me again.” He rolled off me, laying on his back.

  I turned on my side and propped myself up on one elbow. “So, we are both are in half worlds, and unconditional acceptance of each other would pull us into a whole new world. Is that it, johnny?”

  “That’s it,” he whispered.

  “I see why you want this from me now, but I still don’t know if I can do it. I’m ashamed to admit that, and equally ashamed that I want to try. But it’s the truth.”

  “It is up to you then if we catalyze each other into something new, or if I am merely to protect you.”

  Those words, protect you, landed in my heart like the thud of a drum. He gave me so much. Why couldn’t I return the gift? Why? I’d forgiven rapists and murderers. Why not johnny?

  I said, “It hurts when I try to accept your ways. It’s like, if I do, then I am guilty of your crimes.”

  “My crimes have merit. I have merit,” he said, “if only you will see. If only you will—” he mouthed the words silently, “—trust me.”

  The shadows of his life lurked behind his words. I felt his melancholy, his ancient loneliness. I blinked back tears. “In spite of everything, I do want to be with you.”

  He rolled onto me, my back flat on the bed. “That is enough,” he kissed my forehead, “for now.” He cupped my head in his hands. “I will be patient.”

  “So, where will we live? New York is too wild for me. And you can’t . . . you know . . . do what you do, very well—here.”

  “We’ll travel. I want to show you the world.” His eyes glimmered. “I’ve been around it a time or ten, you know.”

  I cracked half a smile, a bit exhilarated by the idea of being accompanied by such a worldly creature. But there would always be nights. My smile faded. “The nights, johnny, you’ll leave me alone in them.”

  “And in the days, I will romance you the way you’ve always dreamed.”

  My eyes softened. “That would be lovely.” But then, I thought of the nights again, and something else. “What if I get pregnant? What if I am?”

  “You are not.” He moved slowly away from me, and sat up, swinging his legs over the bed’s edge. He raised a lit cigarette to his mouth. “I can only create a child once every six years, and only in the summer. That’s why Tazmarks are so rare. And full-blooded Tazmarks, the most rare of all. One year more and I will be potent with seed.”

  I crawled up next to him and sat, swinging my legs next to his. Our hips touched. I cherished the feeling. I said, “If we did have a baby, would you protect our child? Or, when it grows up, will you want to . . . kill it?”

  He stared at me blankly for a moment. Then he said, “If the child was a part of you—I wouldn’t kill it. I wouldn’t kill anyone who shared your blood.”

  I gazed at his profile as he smoked his cigarette.

  I asked, “But would you love our child?”

  He exhaled smoke through the side of his mouth and faced me. “I don’t know. But you would. And that should be enough.”

  “What if he asks why you leave every night? Or why some bad mouth bully suddenly started to choke? Or why daddy looks like a dragon sometimes? Or heaven forbid, why daddy—” I wanted to say eats people, but the words ran away from my tongue.

  He looked puzzled. “Jen.” He paused and stared at me again with that stunned expression. “If we had a child, I don’t understand why you would want to keep it.”

  “johnny! I could never abandon my baby.”

  “Even if it was like me?”

  And that thought gave me pause. My mind flashed on imaginings of our future: little Jenséa hugging daddy goodnight and burning the hell out of him, daddy gulping down a quart of scotch at the dinner table, and little johnny trying to eat his sister.

  “Yes,” I gulped, “even if it was like you.”

  “You’re a dreamer,” he said, lowering his cigarette to the bedside, his hand coming up empty.

  “I would keep our baby.” I scrunched my brow. “Do you think our child would be like you?”

  “I was conceived by two full-blooded Tazmarks. So, our baby would be a half-breed, less powerful, less needful in the night. With you as the mother, and me as the father—well, perhaps the child would balance out well.”

  “But if Shens are not from a hereditary line, how could physical genetics determine anything at all of a Shen?”

  “Shens attract Shen spirits. If a Shen is to be born, it often springs from a Shen, though not all Shens birth t
heir own kind. The child could have my physical nature and your spirituality. Wouldn’t that be something? We could create a new breed. It is after all, improbable that Tazmark and Shen have ever formed an alliance like ours.”

  I lowered my head meekly, all too aware of why Tazmark and Shen didn’t couple. Aside from being natural enemies, capable of supernaturally destroying each other, they would never see eye to eye like johnny and I were trying to do. If such an alliance had occurred somewhere in history, the Tazmark probably gobbled up the Shen by the second date. I almost went down that way with johnny in New York. He wanted to take me—and resisting that urge was hard for him. I could feel his struggle. Sooner or later, it seemed only logical that he would get me. Were we not doomed to fail?

  “Doomed to fail,” he echoed, reading my mind.

  I raised my sad eyes to him. “Well, aren’t we?”

  “If you cannot trust me, yes. If you refuse to come into your potential, yes.”

  “I will try to come into my potential, whatever that is.”

  “And you must support my nightly hunt. I cannot sustain myself without it.”

  I cupped my ears. “johnny, I hate it when you talk like . . . like a Tazmark.” Instantly, I felt guilty censuring him for telling the truth. I dropped my hands, letting one fall on his knee. “I know you want me to accept you as you are, but for a little while, I need to pretend that you are at least somewhat like other men. You’re making it difficult for me to do that.”

  He laid his hand on mine. “But I’m not like other men. If you pretend I am, then we are doomed.”

  I stared at my knees, shaking my head. “I need time.” I looked up at him with pleading eyes, as if he could be normal if he tried.

  His face hardened, but he did not remove his hand from mine. He clutched it tighter. “No matter how hard you wish it, you can’t change the truth.”

  I slipped my hand free from his grasp and hugged my stomach.

  He said, “You shelter yourself too much.”

  I wanted to be mad at him, but he was right. I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Acknowledging life’s sordid side makes me feel vulnerable.”

  He stroked my cheek. “But that’s why I’m here, Jen. That’s why I’m here.”

  The door sounded with a knock. “Are you two going to sleep forever?”

  Randa! I lurched off the bed like a child caught in a mischievous act. “Ah, no.” My heart pounded. “Um, we’ll be out in a minute.”

  “I’ll be in my room,” she said. I heard her walk away.

  johnny stood. “You go.” He embraced me from behind, and held me for a long minute. He kissed my temple and released me. “I’m going to shower.”

  “All right.” I said, wanting his arms back around me.

  He walked across the room to the adjoining bathroom. When he was gone, I tugged my white sweater down over my hips, gathered my wits, and went out the door, down the hall to the guest room.

  Randa was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the sapphire blue covered bed, reading Art Treasure magazine, looking most attractive in her red turtleneck sweater and black pants.

  Her eyes lit when she saw me.

  I smiled sheepishly.

  She sprang up and grabbed my arm, leading me over to sit on the bed with her. “Tell me what’s happening with you and johnny!”

  We sat. My face turned red. “Oh Randa—”

  She grinned. “You slept with him, didn’t you? I wasn’t sure if you had before, you’re so darn secretive about those sort of things, but this time, well . . . ?”

  “R a n d a,” I said in an embarrassed drawl.

  “What was it like? Is he a good lover?”

  “Randa!” My face was so flushed, my eyes hurt.

  “You love him, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And he loves you?”

  I nodded.

  She seized me in her arms and smacked my cheek with a kiss. Then she pushed me back with her hands gripping my shoulders. “I’m so happy for you,” she said with watery eyes.

  “Geez Randa, I feel like a kid.”

  “Well, I feel like your mom. So there. We’re even.”

  She rose and wiped away a happy tear. “I’m going to get out of your hair and let you guys spend some time together. Of course, I want to take your paintings back with me.”

  I winced. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Come on, give them up. It’s no big deal! Hundreds of people paint scenes of death and violence. So what wrong with you doing it?”

  “But who would want paintings like that?”

  “You did, and you're not such a bad person.”

  “Okay,” came out my mouth, against my better judgment—but truthfully, I did want to rid myself of them, especially since I’d lived them all out with johnny in New York.

  “Excellent,” she exclaimed. “I’ve already made reservations at Sky Harbor Airport for the 4:20 flight to New York. Do you have some packing crates left?”

  “Yes,” I said, standing, “in the hall closet.”

  “I’ll go pack them.” She walked to the door.

  I followed. “I’ll help you.”

  She turned her head back over her shoulder. “No. You go spend some time with johnny.”

  A little girl smile crept across my face. I couldn’t stop it. It was as if my mother had just told me I could go to the candy store. Oh well, I think Randa enjoyed being a mother figure to me, even though we were the same age. And she’d been a very good mother at that.

  Randa drove away at 1:00 p.m. with a smile on her face and my paintings in her white rental Cadillac. I hoped my horror collection would sell quickly with no media attention.

  I dressed in a pale blue sweat suit with matching jogging shoes. I drew my hair back into a ponytail with a fuzzy blue band. A few hair wisps fell over my temples. I needed to jog, especially after the last harrowing twenty-four hours.

  I had fruit and toast for breakfast, or brunch, or lunch, I guess. johnny had the rest of Randa’s scotch and a pack of cigarettes. He smoked most of them outside in the cold silvery air while circling the perimeter of my property depositing little piles of white dust. I wanted to jog, but his actions interested me, so I sat on my doorstep and watched him. The snow came and went. The rain drizzled on and off. Fantasy and reality took turns with me.

  johnny had changed clothes, a sleeveless black sweatshirt and blue jeans. Blue. This was the first time I’d not seen him totally in black. He looked wonderful. The gray atmosphere complimented him somehow. He truly wasn’t like other men. Who else on earth would look good in dismal?

  After about an hour, he walked up to me, dark hair draped down the sides of his sleek Castilian face. I wanted to kiss him. But first things first. “What were you doing?”

  “Marking your boundary—”

  With powder, I thought, instead of, you know.

  He smiled.

  Geez, it was annoying to be with someone who could read my every thought. “Why are you marking my boundary?”

  “—for when he returns.”

  I slid my head back slightly, squinting an incredulous eye. “He won’t return. He might call and make-up, but that’s all.”

  “He’ll want more. He’ll want revenge.”

  I turned my head away from his piercing eyes and tapped my foot nervously.

  He added, “He’ll make his move today.”

  I shook my head.

  johnny sprung his favorite trap—silence. And I fell into it, as always, uttering the words that would lead me deeper into his point of view. I rubbed my finger along the rubber ridge of my shoe. “On the off chance he does come,” I glanced up at him, “what will the powder do?”

  “It will make him want to turn around and leave.”

  “It won’t hurt him?”

  “Not much.”

  Not much to johnny could mean a week of acute illness to somebody else. I rose and walked a few steps, stopping before johnny’s stunning presence. I placed m
y palms on his chest and looked up at him with puppy dog eyes. “Why can’t we just stay behind locked doors and tell him to leave? If he won’t, we’ll call the police.”

  “Fuck the—-”

  “Okay, no police.” I scowled. “But I don’t want you to use magic either.” Not wanting to face this issue, I turned my back to him and hung my head.

  “A fist then, Jen? I thought you’d had enough of that.”

  “I don’t want to hurt him at all.”

  He held my shoulders.

  I whimpered, “I don’t like doing this!”

  “I know,” he turned me to face him, “still, it must be done.”

  A light snow began to fall again, and I thought of our steamy night in the woods. I had to shake my head a little to focus on the present. “Let me talk to him first.”

  An incredulous smile emerged on his face. “Jen. Do you really think he’d come alone after his failure to harm me yesterday? Do you really think he’ll even give you one moment to speak?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  He took a step back with sharp eyes. “Have you already forgotten what happened yesterday?” His voice flared. “What will it take to convince you?”

  I threw up my hands. “I don’t know!”

  “Well, I do,” he said sternly. He glanced out to the woods, “He’s out there now with his posse. Waiting. Waiting for the right moment to punish you.”

  “No, no, no,” I said with certainty, “he isn’t.” I rubbed my hands hard against my temples and said rebelliously. “You are wrong.”

  “It’s . . . true . . . Jen.” He hurled his words at me like sharp stones.

  My head shook. “What you suggest is shocking. He wouldn’t punish me. He just wouldn’t.”

  He turned away, stepped a few paces, then turned back to me with irritated eyes. “I am finished trying this nice thing with you. It doesn’t suit me. And it doesn’t work.” He took a step toward me, his brows slanting maniacally.

  I flashed my palm at him. “Wait johnny, the nice thing works. It works when I do it.”

  “You’re a Shen.” He took another step. “It’s your nature—” his eyes hardened, “—not mine.”